


Metamorphic

by Beleriandings



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Temporary Character Death, Character Development, Gen, Lucretia's year alone, Stolen Century, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-17 18:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13082580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: The story of the year that shaped Lucretia into Madame Director.





	1. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Note: this is the beginning of what may become a longfic about Lucretia’s year alone in the world of the Judges. Think of this chapter as the first half of a two-part pilot episode, and please let me know what you think. Enjoy!)

Lucretia woke to pain.

She had known her share of pain of course, sixty-five cycles in… they all had, their bodies torn by claws or broken in falls, in feats of daring emboldened by the one great fact that they all knew reasonably certainly to be true; that in time, they would all be stitched back together again out of threads of shining white light.

She had known pain before, though perhaps not as much as some of her family had. But she had not known pain like this in… well, she didn’t know how long; her mind was clouded with it, floating on the edge of consciousness. She thought vaguely that she might be half dead already. _Well, perhaps that would be all right too_ , she thought. It would stop hurting, then. Lucretia had done her fair share of dying too, and it always stopped the pain, at the very least.  

She drifted in and out for some time, hardly aware of the passage of time. If she woke, she knew, it would be with one of the others beside her, Merle’s palm on her forehead as the comforting warmth of a healing spell spread through her whole body. If not that, then she would wake standing in her recorded state, her friends all around her. It would be one of those two; there was no third option.

Or at least, that was what she thought until she felt a featherlight brushing sensation against her cheek, an unearthly song just on the edge of hearing echoing somewhere in her pain-fogged mind.

 _Louder_. It was growing louder, and as the sound grew in pitch and urgency - a song? It sounded so sad, almost as though it was a song of mourning - awareness started to come back.

She frowned. She knew that song; it was so familiar.

 _A song_ … a gentle brushing touch, a memory of walking through a cave of glimmering crystal. A tank in her room, glowing from within, a quiet song in the night.

With realisation came some measure of clarity. And with clarity came physical awareness, and then the pain was redoubled, cutting suddenly through her and drawing her upwards from unconsciousness like a bright river fish caught on a hook.

She cried out as she twitched awake.

A tendril, gently brushing her cheek, a cry of increasing urgency and sorrow. Lucretia blinked, and groaned as another wave of pain assaulted her. She was lying on something hard, set at a slight slope, and although it hurt to try to raise her head - her neck must be badly bruised, as was every muscle in her body, it felt like - she could turn a little way. Enough to see a familiar glow at the corner of her vision.

“F-Fisher!” she managed, smiling with relief, then quickly wincing at the pain even of that small movement. Her voice came as a croaking whisper; her throat was dry as dust. Fisher tilted their bell in apparent concern at even the small sound she had managed. Drawing in closer, they extended several more tendrils along with the one that had been stroking her cheek. One came to rest on the back of her hand, and another on her cheek, making small, soothing motions. Lucretia had to smile once more, despite herself. “Ah… hang on” Lucretia managed to choke out. “Let me just…”

She braced herself against the ground, gathering her strength. As she did so, she felt pain shoot through her shoulder, a visceral, bone deep pain that made her cry out a little, tears coming to her eyes.

Immediately, Fisher was bobbing solicitously closer, making a tiny sound of distress at Lucretia’s whimpers of pain, as she forced her other hand and her legs to work. As she slowly levered herself up, more pain came; specifically, a sharp pain in her side and a grating of bone that told her what she had feared, that she had broken at least one rib. At least she couldn’t taste any blood, so it was unlikely that it had punctured a lung. Hopefully not, at least.  Her shoulder also hurt, pain radiating from it in waves that made it difficult to think clearly. It was in the wrong position, dislocated probably, but she had neither the strength nor the courage to try to do anything about that right now.

She grimaced, breathing hard, and trying to take stock of her surroundings, rather than her own pitiful state. But even that was difficult; her vision on one side was blocked by something dark, and she realised after a moment that it was a large tangled clump of her own hair, cloud-white curls matted with dark, coagulated blood from a cut at her hairline. She winced as she touched it.

Probably there would be a concussion, she thought, in a rather clinical and detached way. The symptoms matched up; she felt a little nauseous and dizzy, even having made the relatively minor progression from lying on the floor to sitting, half supported by her uninjured left hand. Her head ached horribly. _And what was the other?_ _Ah yes. Amnesia._

That was another thing; she was struggling to remember what had happened to her. _Where had these injuries come from? Where were her family?_

Lucretia glanced at Fisher, who was wrapping their tendrils around her now, singing a little song that sounded distinctly like relief. “Yes, I know” she rasped, sadly. “Shit’s gotten pretty whack, it would seem.” She frowned again, more questions coming to mind by the moment. Why was Fisher out of their tank, for one? Also, for that matter, where was she? She looked around; the ground beneath her was silver-white and smooth, a flat plane at a slight incline. The walls were curved, and all was smooth and unmarked, but for a couple of smears of what she surmised was her own blood, a little way away.

No, wait… there was something else. She sat up, extending her good arm and extending a finger for Fisher to coil a tendril around - she figured they could both use a comforting touch right now - as she spotted something in the floor. It was glowing, but not steadily. Flickering, in fact. A flickering white light, embedded in the floor where she sat, pointing upwards.

Or not upwards.

 _Downwards_. She was sitting, she realised all at once, on the ceiling. And not just any ceiling; the ceiling of a room that was very familiar indeed.

She cricked her neck painfully backwards to look up, confirming her suspicion. She was in the control room of the Starblaster, and the ship was still. As well as - more pressingly - upside down.

And just like that, memory came. She gasped a little in dread as it did. They had just arrived in a new world, and the others had all been on the deck debating where to set down. She had heard their voices as she had been walking through the control room; she had been just about to join them out there.

And then something had struck the ship, and they had been falling. The last thing Lucretia remembered was being knocked off her feet, falling against the control panel as the ship hurtled into freefall, before all went dark.

“I must have hit my head” she said, out loud. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to Fisher or just to herself, but it brought tears to her eyes; moment by moment, dread was growing, as she realised more and more of what had happened.

And not just dread for her own sake; _if the others weren’t here with her_... if they had been knocked from the deck, as they undoubtedly must have been, then surely they were dead. Or if not, then they must be far worse off than she was.

 _Which would mean that she might be the only one who could get them through this cycle_...

 _No, no_ , she tried to tell herself. _That might not be true_. She didn’t know anything for certain after all.

Somehow these reassurances rang slightly hollow though, even to herself. She sat there for a long while, until her head was slightly clearer. The first thing she must do, she decided, was to search the ship. If anyone else was here, they might be injured, even worse than she was. Once this plan had been made, it felt a little easier to get up; she had a goal now, albeit a small one, that felt more or less achievable.

But even as Lucretia levered herself to her feet, she felt a wave of nausea wash over her, accompanied a moment later by dread; she wondered blearily if she still might die, perhaps of internal bleeding. That had happened to Lup once; she had fallen off a low cliff, and they had thought she was fine… and she was, until she was coughing blood, dying. Or she could die of shock. _Could one die of shock?_ Perhaps. One could definitely die of a blow to the head. Lucretia laughed quietly to herself, as cold sweat broke out on her forehead the room tilted. She thought that she’d ask Merle about the shock, when she saw him again. And if she did die then it would take a bit longer, but she’d have a definitive answer for him. She could write that down in her journal, too.

That thought brought back a little of her clarity. Her journals. She had to check that they were safe; she supposed she should be writing a damage report right now, but she should also be looking for the others...but somehow, nothing was staying in her head…

A few quiet notes, a descending chord of worry; she looked up, seeing Fisher floating in front of her, bell tilted just a little, as though to peer into Lucretia’s face. Several of their tendrils were on her shoulder, wrapping protectively around her as she began to feel her knees give way a little.

She felt a renewed spike of determination, pulling herself to her feet again unsteadily. She could do better than this. _Think in steps. Step one. Medicine_. That was what she needed. Then she’d be able to search for the others.

Stumbling, she made it to the kitchen, where in the corner stood the cabinet filled with their stockpiled healing potions, neatly corked and labelled by Merle. The cabinet had been flung into a corner, with several of Merle’s plants and their bright ceramic pots shattered all around it. Lucretia dropped to her knees, heedless of the shards; some of the potion bottles were smashed too, but there were many that were intact. She grabbed a promising looking bottle of sparkling pink liquid, squinting at the label; her vision was too blurred to read it, drifting into double and making her dizzy. _Never mind_. Wincing as she jostled her dislocated shoulder again, she pulled the cork out with her teeth, and downed the whole thing.

She sighed gratefully as she felt warmth spread through her body, the familiar balm of magical healing, and felt the rather disconcerting - but still very welcome - sensation of the shattered bones of her ribs beginning to knit together again. A moment later her shoulder was popping back into place of its own accord, a highly unpleasant sensation for a moment, but quickly the pain began to fade there too. After a moment her mind also felt a little clearer, some of the splitting pain in her head leaving her. She took a deep breath. It hadn’t been an especially powerful potion; she still ached all over. She grabbed another, blue this time and slammed that one too, for good measure.

After that, she felt almost normal again. At least physically; her mind was still racing as she sat there amidst the shattered plant pots, Fisher bobbing close to her head. She carefully collected the remaining healing potions; there were more than she had thought at first. That was good, Lucretia thought grimly. She might well need them, especially if Merle she didn’t find Merle in any state to heal the others.

That was the other thing; the others. There really was no sign of them. The implications of that were more overwhelming than she could think about right now, healed though she was. So though the oppressive silence of solitude pressed in on her, but she tried to use it as a chance to think logically.

The ship was upside down, and she didn’t think there was any way that could mean anything good. What had happened, exactly? She tried to think back on every detail she could remember, now that her mind was clearer again. Yes, they had been flying above the surface, _and then_ -

She caught her breath, as more details came back. She had been inside, while the others looked down from the deck onto this new world. She had heard their voices; she had been on her way out there to join them. She always had liked to get the lay of the land from above when they landed in a new world. Especially one like this, which seemed so harsh, even from high above.

And then a jolt, something too bright to look at flaring outside the window. She remembered the floor falling out from under her, gravity dropping away as the Starblaster had plunged into freefall. Her immediate thought was the the Hunger had come early; but even as that idea had crossed her mind, her memory ended. She must have hit her head then, she supposed.

She got to her feet again, determined now. With memory came renewed fear; if she had been hurt so badly, then what must the others have suffered? If they were all dead except her -

She put that thought aside again for the moment, tucking it determinedly away. Instead, she threw herself into searching the ship, from front to back, starting with her own room. It was jarring to see the space she knew so well turned, quite literally, upside down. Her cabinet of journals had fallen over, smashing into Fisher’s tank; the water had drained out, soaking the ceiling-which-was-now-the-floor. She cleaned up the water with prestidigitation, glad of the minor enchantments of durability and waterproofing that she had placed on all her journals as standard.

Cleaning and setting her own room to rights calmed her, or at least proved a brief distraction. But once she had righted her bookcase and replaced the journals as best she could, she made herself carry on with her search, Fisher tailing along behind her. She did a quick sweep of the Starblaster, with mounting dread; it was as she had expected; everything was still and empty.

Finally, Lucretia had to accept the truth of it; she and Fisher were the only beings left alive here, and she needed to plan accordingly.

“Looks like it’s just you and me for now” she told Fisher. They bobbed up and down a little in the air, darting out of the room; a moment later they were back with one of the carved wooden ducks that Magnus made, putting it into Lucretia’s hands and making a regretful sound.

“...Yeah, me too” she whispered, trying not to cry as she ran her thumb the rough wood grain. “I miss them already, too.”

She held the duck for a little while, clutching it close. She had to be strong like Magnus, she knew. _Strong like Magnus, fearless like Lup, inventive like Taako, patient like Barry, clever like Davenport, calm like Merle_. She smiled, tearily; it was something she had often thought, over the years when she had needed to. They had all learned so much from each other, and become stronger for it.

Lucretia took a deep breath. If they really were gone - and she had to work on the assumption that they were, it was quickly becoming clear to her - then she needed those memories of them and the strength that they lent her, now more than ever.

At last she stood, handing the duck back to Fisher. “I’m going to go outside and take a look around” she said. “Stay here, do you hear me? I promise I’ll be back soon.”

She grabbed her bag, packing into it the basics for an adventure; her spare wand and component pouch, three healing potions. A flask of water, a small knife, a spare cloak, a handful of gold - though admittedly, the currency was from several planes ago - and some Fantasy Powerbars for good measure. Her journal and a pen went into the special slightly-larger-on-the-inside, not-quite-pocket-dimensional-pocket sewn into her spare red robe, as the one she had been wearing before was torn and bloodied from her fall.

She’d fix it later, she thought as she peered out of the door of the Starblaster. Then, taking a breath, she stepped outside into this new world in which she was alone.

The world she found herself in was a harsh, unforgiving place, Lucretia came to see very quickly indeed. From above there had been grey rock and dust as far as the eye could see, but for that shining city on the hill, far off on the other horizon. Sure enough, she could still see the city; the four monumental statues silhouetted against a cloudy grey sky gave her an uncomfortable feeling, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint why.

But she was even further away from the city than she had thought, she soon came to realise. The land was deceptive, tumbled with ragged rocks, treacherous scree and rubble. It was dusty too; soon enough, the dust began to make her chest ache, settling in her hair and coating her skin, drying her throat more quickly than it should. She soon finished her water, and began thinking longingly of streams and lakes. But she could see nothing of sort.

She couldn’t see much at all, in fact. Especially as it was starting to grow dark. It would be far too easy to get lost out here, Lucretia was all too aware.

She was just considering going back to the Starblaster, when she heard a voice behind her. “Put your hands up and give up your wand if you want to live, stranger redmage!”

She whirled in alarm, raising her wand by instinct, a defensive spell already at her fingertips. But even as she did, she felt the scree slip beneath her boots, and a moment later, she was losing her balance, tumbling to the bottom of the slope she had just climbed with a shout and a cloud of dust.

She rolled the last of the way, falling hard onto her back. She didn’t think she was hurt this time, but her lungs ached with the dust. Once she had finished coughing, she looked up to see four figures, grouped around her, silhouettes against the quickly darkening sky.

Her eyes widened, as she saw their faces; blank and glassy eyes stared down at her, with beak-like mouths and -

No, she realised. Not faces; they were masks. The four were wearing masks that covered their eyes, noses, and mouths.

“She a lawrat?” asked one, in a voice muffled by their mask, tilting their head doubtfully.

“Nah. No mask” said another, kicking her shoulder with the toe of a boot. “Even lawrats ain’t not as pebble-headed as that.”

“I’ll say. Walking around all brightgarbed like that? She must be duststruck.”

“She’s not one of them, for sure.”

“Not one of us either. Nor them snatchers.”

“Well, then what’s she rightly then?”

“Dunno.”

“Well, why don’t we take her back settlewards?” said the first, poking her arm with the end of a long staff. “Kaen’ll know.”

“Psh. ‘F you ask me, Kaen’s a nothing-knower, just like you.”

“Excuse me” put in Lucretia from the ground, pushing herself up on one hand. The four were all immediately on guard, though they didn’t try to stop her. She took heart from this, reaching discretely for her wand holster. “You know, you could have just asked.” The four said nothing, merely stared at each other in confusion. She pressed on. “My name is Lucretia. I’m not a... _lawrat_ , or a _snatcher_.”

“What’s a _Lu-cree-sha_?”

“ _I’m_ Lucretia. It’s my name.”  
  
“But what _are_ you, redmage?”  
  
“I’m a human. Also a chronicler and an... explorer? Yes, let’s go with that. Ah... I apologise for my... _pebble-headedness_ ” she said, rather tartly, “but I do find myself in something of a situation. So, ah, I was wondering if I could trouble to let me get up and then maybe - ”

Just as she said that though, she was interrupted by an explosion overhead, something bright arcing through the darkening sky with a terrible screaming whine. It had an immediate effect on the four people surrounding her; instantly, they were cowering out of sight, ducking behind a ragged outcropping of rock.

Lucretia blinked. Where the bright arc had connected with the ground, there was a little crater in the dust, but no obvious damage. In the centre of the crater, there was a small object. Lucretia bent to inspect it, curious.

To all intents and purposes, it appeared to be a small sphere of rock, about the size of an apple but perfectly smooth. Gingerly, she reached out and touched it. It was slightly warm, but otherwise unremarkable.

She pulled her hand away, wondering whether to cast Detect Magic or to save the spell slot. But before she had the chance to think any further, the object flashed with a soft white light.

“Ten...” came a hard, metallic voice, issuing apparently from the object, and then a moment later, another flash. “Nine...”

Lucretia’s eyes widened in horror as behind her came several whines of terror from the four hiding in the rocks behind her. “Eight…” came the voice and the light. Lucretia gritted her teeth, trying not to lose her nerve as she considered. She whispered to herself as she thought, trying to keep her mind clear. _Strong like Magnus, fearless like Lup, inventive like Taako, patient like Barry, clever like Davenport, calm like Merle_. _Strong like Magnus..._

“Seven…”

_Fearless like Lup..._

“Six…”

 _Inventive like Taako_...

“Five…”

 _Patient like Barry_...

“Four…”

 _Clever like Davenport_...

“Three…”

 _Calm like Merle_...

“Two…”

Lucretia took a breath, laying her hand on top of the orb, which was no longer warm but hot, and somehow growing larger. She had become used to having so much time, but now she could hear her heart beating very loud in her ears, a fast rhythm, ticking away the moments she had left. Maybe the very last she’d ever have if this went wrong.

“One...”

 

**_[To be continued]_ **


	2. A storm in the distance

“Three…”

“Two…”

“One…”

There was a soft blue flash of light, and suddenly Lucretia’s palm - which had been placed tentatively on top of the stone sphere - felt wet, as did the knees of her trousers and her robe where she knelt on the dusty ground. But there was no blast, no explosion throwing her back, merely a sort of wet sloshing noise.

Tentatively, she opened her eyes, to see that the sphere had indeed disappeared, transmuted to water which was darkening the fine, dry dust, forming a muddy puddle. 

Trying to still her racing heartbeat, she stood up, a little shaken. That had been some sort of bomb, she was sure of it; she had had a very narrow escape. 

Even as she got to her feet, she heard a muffled exclamation from behind the boulders where the four masked people had been, followed by another person swiftly hushing the first. But it seemed they had been unsuccessful, as a moment later, a huge, burly figure masked and dressed in a mismatched but rugged assortment of grey and black – which made very good camouflage in the ash desert landscape, Lucretia realised now, or certainly much better than her own red robe, no matter how dusty she was by now – sprang to their feet and let out a hoot of amazement.

“Damn, if she didn’t just disarm a judge-damned PB! Turned it straight to water she did!” enthused the figure, running over to her and dropping down on their knees to inspect the wet stain soaking into the ground, poking at it with a thickly-gloved hand. They bounced to their feet, waving their arms with delight and clapping their hands. “Sploosh! Just like that!”

“Just a little transmutation magic” said Lucretia, modestly. She was wary; this person was even bigger than Magnus, and had comparable levels of energy, which in her mind made them likely a force to be reckoned with. “But wait… P…B?” she thought aloud. “Elemental lead? …….Peanut butter?”

The masked person tilted their head in what she imagined was a disdainful look, as though she were very slow and stupid. “What’s a peanut butter? Redmage, y’really must be duststruck like a forestling.”

Before she could answer, the smallest of the four was coming up behind them, laying a placating hand on their elbow and taking off their mask. The face revealed was an older halfling woman, her dark skin lined with age and worry, grizzled hair cropped short. She wore an expression as   hard and uncompromising as the surrounding rock. “Schell, I’m thinking you’re the one’s duststruck. Petrification bombs ain’t no matter for jesselin’ about, nor’s the lawrats as throw ‘em.” She spat on the ground, then looked up at Lucretia. “But never mind that. Redmage, you hurt?”

“Uh…” Lucretia was still a little bruised from her fall in the Starblaster. Though the healing potions had aged and faded her bruises to an ugly green, she still ached all over, and not least from all the walking and climbing she had done since then. But she was unhurt, except for the burning at the back of her throat. “No?”

The halfling woman nodded, coming right up close to her, motioning for her to kneel and gripping her chin tightly, inspecting her face from every angle, making her open her mouth. After a while she nodded approvingly. “No blood in your mouth or nose. You might be alright, if you put this on, fastlike.” She handed Lucretia her mask.

Lucretia blinked. “Thank you, but I can’t…” her voice cracked, and she fell to coughing, at the dryness in her throat. She came up with her eyes watering, Schell throwing out a hand to support her. “Thank you. But d-don’t you need it?”

“Aye, Whinlow!” said another of the masked figures, one at the back, flipping up the upper portion of the mask like a visor so that Lucretia saw another woman’s face. Ahalf-elf she thought, piercing green-gold eyes narrowed in suspicion, before she rather pointedly dropped the mask back down again. “No point dustbreathing for her sake, I say. We don’t know anydamnthing about her.” The figure - a woman perhaps, Lucretia thought - gazed off into the distance.

“We know she’s a mage, Laeni” said Whinlow. “That’s sounding like anydamnthing to me. And she disarmed a PB; we would be statues if not for her. And she made water! Kaen’ll be wanting to see her for that alonesome, leastways. Can’t do that if she’s dustdead, can he?”

Laeni folded her arms, clearly still nursing misgivings. “You’re more important though, Whinlow.”

The fourth figure, still standing by the rocks where the four had been hiding, spoke then. “Whinlow’s a strong one. She’ll survive the trip maskless… she’s got them duststrong lungs, you recall? Besides, we’re only… zero point three turns til homewards. Not long for dust, and certainly not as long as this roachdumb wisp of a redmage has been a-wandering out here in the dustlands, I’d wager.”

“Aye, Frith’s talking sense. I can easily make it back, so long’s we get back sleighwards in good time” Whinlow said.

“Ah, I don’t mean to intrude” said Lucretia, “but I would actually prefer to return to my…” she paused, realising that it might not be wise to tell these people about the Starblaster; they had a look about them that suggested they might as easily strip it for parts as help her graciously to get home. And she was painfully aware of the terrifying possibility that had occurred to her earlier; that she might be the only one left. At the very least, if the others were alive they must need all the help they could get in this place. “Ah… could you perhaps give me a map of the area? Then I can be on my way back.”

But already Laeni was stifling laughter, while Schell let out a guffaw. “ “Map of the area”? Is your head turned backwards?”

“Isn’t no making maps of the dustlands, redmage” said Whinlow, giving her a shrewd look from out of the folds of her scarf. She ran her hand over a ragged granite boulder beside Lucretia, with something close to reverence she thought. “This place is stitched together from rock, and the shapes of them are…” she tapped her temple “…all up in here.”

“Surely that’s not a very helpful navigation system” said Lucretia.

Laeni tilted her masked face. “What rock y’been hiding under, hmm redmage? Isn’t no _map_ that will get you through the dustlands.” She snickered into her face-piece. “But since you were a wandering like an aimless crow, isn’t no surprise you don’t know even that much.”

“Laeni, halt your mouth” warned Whinlow. She turned back to Lucretia. “Let me ask you a question, redmage. Where is it, then, that you want to go?”

“Uh…” Lucretia frowned. “It’s that way” she said, pointing back in the rough direction that she thought she had come from. “I set out several hours ago - I think? - on foot, so I suppose, multiply my walking speed by the…” she tailed off, as Frith was shaking his head. “No?”

“Not likely” said Frith. “Isn’t nothin’ of note in that there cardinal direction for days and days. Or nothin’ that won’t try its best to eat you, leastwise. You must have gotten turned about, redmage, if you made it here without being torn apart by vulfins or somesuch. That’s if the dust don’t choke you first.”

Lucretia’s heart sank. It was true that she had encountered no dangers - yet - on her journey, but on the other hand, getting lost was what she had been afraid of; she had even tried to walk in the straightest of lines, as there were neither suns, nor stars, nor moons visible in the sky by which to orient herself. Only thick, ever-present, lowering clouds, steel grey with undersides the sickly purple of a fresh bruise, and sometimes in the distance the flicker of lightning on the horizon.

Whinlow interrupted her thoughts, staring grimly into the distance. “Well, if home for you is past the horizon then it’s with us you’ll have to go. Dust-storm’s a-comin’, mark my words. Can smell it.”

The others flinched a little at that pronouncement, a subtle tension evident in their stances.

Whinlow turned back to her, pressing the mask into her hands once more. “Take it, child.” She pulled her rough collar up around her neck, tugging her thick charcoal-coloured scarf closer about her face, something that might have been a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. “Go on, redmage. Ash’ll rip your soft breathing pipes to shreds ‘f you go a-wandering much longer without one.”

“O-oh. Thank you.” Lucretia put the mask on and they began to follow Frith and a still excitable Schell back in the direction they had come – with Laeni bringing up the rear, looking to either side. Lucretia was pleasantly surprised by how much easier breathing was with the mask on, though it was horribly hot and stuffy inside, and it clung and rubbed in all the wrong places. As well as this, her vision was narrowed to a mere two circles of of grey smoked glass, limiting her vision even further, turning everything to an even flatter palette of ash hues than it was in reality. She could flip open the visor, but to do so was to get an eyeful of dust once again; Whinlow was probably right about the storm, she thought, for the wind really was picking up.

But she could breath through the mask; she supposed that was the main thing, and if the four of them were to be believed, then being outside for too long without a mask would have been very bad, probably quite soon.

Even as she was thinking this, Whinlow was leaning in towards her. “I ‘spect there’s a good reason why you were out here without nothing on your face to ward the dust, redmage” she said. “And I don’t expect you to tell me now… breath’s best used on other things that words out here. But when we get back to the Underbase it’s not just me that’ll be wanting some ‘splainin’s, it’ll be Kaen too. And there’s no playing like a duststruck know-nothing to Kaen, not when we tell him of the magics you know.” She hushed Lucretia with a raised hand. “I’m not threatening, young redmage. Just… know that I’ve got eyes on you, and they’ll stay there ‘til Kaen’s decided what you are, and that what you are isn’t harm to me ’n’ mine. You comprehendin’?”

Lucretia nodded hastily, clutching her journal closer to her chest, where it was tucked into her robe. “Yes, of course.”

It was fair, she thought. She was a stranger here, and they had witnessed her using magic that had clearly surpassed what they were used to. She would go along with this for now; after all, it was probably her only chance of getting the right gear to move freely in this strange desert, and also to get an idea of the lay of the land. Perhaps even allies to guide her back to Starblaster, people she could trust.

_And the gods knew she needed every one of those she could find right now._

They walked a little way, until they came to a little circular depression, bordered by a jagged ridge of rock. It looked, Lucretia thought, like a crater of some sort, though it was larger than the length of the Starblaster from bow to stern. She didn’t want to think about what could have made such a crater, but she tucked the question away for future consideration.

Not that she had much time to consider such things; her four erstwhile companions were already scrambling down into the crater to its centre, in which there was an upthrust point of rock jutting from the sand, about as tall as a human and several times as wide. As Lucretia - with considerably less grace - slid down the sandy slope to come up beside them, she watched as Schell seemed to grab a handful of the very stuff of the rock itself. She almost gasped, as he gave it a quick, hard tug, revealing that what she had thought was rock was in fact a cloth of some sort, a tarp made to look exactly like the texture of hard black granite. When draped over an object, it made an extremely convincing rock, almost indistinguishable from the others scattered around this unforgiving landscape.

But it was the object that it hid that made Lucretia’s eyes widen in amazement. It was clearly some sort of vehicle, but one unlike any she had ever seen; it was the same dull charcoal colour as everything else in this landscape - save of course for Lucretia - though its sides were pitted and scratched and dented, rust creeping up around the wheels. The wheels themselves were huge and wide, with thick rubber treads, and there were six of them, the incongruously lightweight-looking chassis balanced on top of them in a way that looked oddly precarious.

The vehicle had an exposed engine and an open top, with four rusted bucket-seats and a hold for baggage that was not much more than an open-topped steel cage strapped to the back over the exhaust pipes, which was half full of crates.

The whole thing, in fact, looked distinctly cobbled together, and Lucretia could see that at least one of the seats and the crate at the back was strapped on with what looked like fraying cord, tied in lumpy knots.

“Last one in the sleigh’s mother’s a sand eel!” yelled Schell, clambering into one of the seats.

“Th-this is what we’re travelling in?” Lucretia asked, as the other three immediately began to climb into the vehicle. She couldn’t help but notice that all it had in the way of controls - that she could see - was a large steering wheel that seemed half broken off, and a handle that seemed to attach directly to the engine. She frowned, as Frith sat down in the last seat. “Where do I sit?”

“Oh, you’ll have to go in the back” said Laeni, gesturing carelessly backwards with a thumb.

Lucretia raised her eyebrows, looking at the cage. “In… in that?”

“Well, _on_ that” said Frith, “you’ll have to sort of… perch topwise on the crates, but as long as you pay mind to clinging on t’the bars it’s not hard, you’ll find.”

Applying the terminology “ _not hard_ ” required, in this context, quite a stretch of the imagination, Lucretia would write in her journal later. At the time, she didn’t think much at all, except to offer some fervent - and rather more profanity-laced than in other circumstances - prayers to Istus as she struggled to keep herself from falling off the tall and precarious stack of crates at any given time.

Certainly, the whims of fate seemed in that moment all that was helping her to cling to those bars as Laeni wrenched on the cord that set the engine roaring into life, and as Schell steered the little car - more of a buggy really, so light was its construction - over stones and sand, its treads flinging up black sand and rattling Lucretia around so hard that she couldn’t hear the others’ voices. Within five minutes she found herself even more bruised than when the Starblaster had crash-landed on this forsaken land in which she now found herself. At least she had been unconscious for that though, she found herself thinking ruefully.

Several times on the journey, the engine stalled, belching acrid fumes, and Laeni had to pull the cord over and over until it spluttered back into life, with much colourful vocabulary that in any other circumstances, Lucretia would be interested in recording in her journal for posterity. As it was, by the end of the journey she was aching, her bones thoroughly rattled, wishing that she had had the presence of mind to cast stone skin on herself.

After what felt like an interminable length of time, Frith - apparently completely untroubled by any of this - hopped from his seat cheerfully, and extended a rather ineffectual hand to help Lucretia down.

It was only once she was on the ground that she realised something. The four were behaving quite as though this was the end of their journey - unclasping and untying, hauling crates down from the baggage cage - but the place where they had stopped did not seem to display any sign of being anything other than another stretch of the endless dust-wastes, strewn with ragged shards of rock.

“Redmage!” Schell’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she was knocked a little way forward by a heavy-gloved hand, clapping her hard on the shoulder. “What’re you doing shillyshallying around, hmm? Help with the cargo, won’t you?”

Quickly, Lucretia nodded, levitating a stack of crates to general appreciation. But she frowned, looking around doubtfully. “Where…are we?”

Whinlow laughed a little, pulling a rod from a loop on her belt, that Lucretia had not noticed before. Now that she looked closer though, she could see that it was in fact a wand; she wasn’t quite able to discern the exact nature of the spell, but it was conjuration magic, of that much she was sure. Powerful, too, she realised, as Whinlow leaned down to the dust and began to draw, a broad circle in the dust, then set about inscribing it with symbols that she clearly knew by heart. Lucretia frowned, wondering whether Whinlow was a wizard herself; or perhaps a warlock? She could usually spot a sorcerer at least by the magic inherent in their blood, at least. But Whinlow was not obviously any of these. Which struck Lucretia as odd, because if she was a caster of some sort she must be a very powerful one, though Lucretia had sensed hardly a hint of magic on any of the four of them up to this point. Not to mention how they had reacted with apparent astonishment to Lucretia’s own relatively simple magics.

“What is that spell she’s casting?” she asked Frith, curious now. It felt familiar, somehow. Perhaps it was something Taako or Lup had cast, at some point? It seemed like their sort of thing. But no, even the magic itself felt different, somehow, to the way the twins - or anyone she knew - cast spells.

“Isn’t no spell Whinlow’s casting. Whinlow isn’t no mage like of olden times” broke in Laeni. “It’s in that there wand, you see?”

Lucretia’s eyes widened in surprise, seeing that Laeni was right; the wand wasn’t just an arcane focus, it actually had the spell imbued within it. She had encountered a few magical objects like that in her time, but none capable of casting something like this… why, unless she was very much mistaken it was a variation of the spell Teleporation Circle, she realised now; fairly high level stuff for an inexperienced caster, spell-charged wand or not.

Sure enough, as soon as Whinlow had finished drawing the circle in the dust lines of light began to criss-cross the circle, pooling and concentrating on the arcane sigils that Whinlow had traced crudely in the sand. Once all were connected it glowed a soft purple, pulsing in lines of force. After another moment, it flared even brighter, and when the light faded, there was instead a circular hole in the ground at their feet, glowing very slightly with purple light at the edges. A spiral staircase extended downwards into the dark.

“Where did you get the wand?” Lucretia asked, curiosity overcoming her caution.

“Oh, it was Kaen!” put in Schell, enthusiastic once more. “He was the one what found a big haul o’ relics o’ the Beforecomers, and their dragonmages had some good stuff, they did! They knew what they were about, back then!”

“Schell! It don’t do keep runnin’ your mouth about the Beforetimes!” snapped Laeni; Lucretia, noting the sharpness in her voice, thought that perhaps the comment had not been innocuous history. Perhaps she could ask this Kaen about it, she thought. Or perhaps it was something that she must watch her step around.

“Dragonmages…?” she asked, cautious.

Laeni turned her head to look at her, eyes narrowed once more. “Aye, dragonmages” she said, darkly. “The Judgement was a cruel massacre, but some o’ them dragonmages survived, so I hear.” She gave Lucretia a rather shrewd look. “They might even walk o’er the very same dusts as you and I. Though if I were one o’ the Beforecomers, I would surewise be hiding, lest the law find me.”

“Probably a good idea” said Lucretia, trying to keep her voice neutral. Some sort of investigation, some sort of probing of her own story was going on here, she felt sure, though until she knew more about this place she couldn’t for the life of her say what kind, or how her actions were being interpreted.            

She was just about to say more, when Whinlow took the wand, gave it a little flourish of a spin – with a sideways grin at Lucretia, who realised she must have been gaping and promptly shut her mouth – and slotted it with practiced precision into a slot in the chassis of the car, which Lucretia had not noticed before. It fitted perfectly, as though it were made for it. A moment later, Lucretia realised it probably _was_ made for it, as the slot in the side emitted a soft violet glow, which promptly spread all over the car… which then disappeared.

She was still trying to wrap her head around what sort of magic _that_ was, when the others all began to relax a little, and take off their masks. Frith – who was a slight, pale dragonborn with primrose yellow scales, she now saw - gave her a toothy grin, stifling laughter. “Redmage, ‘f you stand there gaping anymore a vulfin’ll lay her eggs in that there mouth o’ yours.” He punched her in the arm, though gently. “It’s gone to the storage hangar. Milarie - she’s our autosmith - ‘ll look after it there, so don’t you be a-flusterin’.”

“R-right” said Lucretia, hoping fervently that the part about vulfins - whatever _those_ were - was only a turn of phrase, but knowing better than to ask about it. Instead she looked around doubtfully; the ground was strewn with the tracks of their tire treads. “Shouldn’t we at least cover our tracks?”

“Dust storm’ll cover ‘em before long” said Laeni, who had also taken off her mask. She had a rather square, lined face with skin of a warm brown, and a mop of vividly red hair that was the brightest thing Lucretia could see for miles around, apart from her own red robe of course. Her gaze was on the horizon, where – sure enough – the lightning that Lucretia had seen earlier was much closer; now, too, she could see that the flicker of searing blue-white came from within a fearsome wall of solid, opaque grey. Under her feet too, she realised, she could feel its low vibration, deep in her bones.

“C’mon redmage” Schell was carrying several large sacks that had been in the baggage hold with Lucretia but he gestured by shaking his head – which was wrapped in a cheerful green cloth to hold back his hair under his mask – down the circular portal, where Whinlow had already started walking. “Laeni’s right; tracks don’t last long, what with the shifting. An’ you truthwise don’t want t’be here when the dust storm comes, those storms as can rip the flesh from yer bones!”

Lucretia nodded in hasty agreement, peering down the circular hole that had yawned in the ground. The portal opened downwards onto a tightly spiralled staircase, covered by a light dusting of the ubiquitous fine dark sand, that must have blown in in the last few minutes.

She stepped onto the stair with some trepidation; it looked so incongruous simply diving down from this strange desert landscape that every magical instinct in her told her that it might be illusory, or a trap of some kind. But the step felt real enough beneath her foot, and did not give way, and the others seemed to all be hurrying towards it without hesitation.

She was just about to follow Whinlow, when there came a high whistle from above, a small burst of dust not too far off flying up into the air. Lucretia’s head whipped around towards it, even as she caught sight of three distant figures silhouetted against the grey sky, high on the next dune ridge. She had been so busy looking down that she had not seen them.

Schell noticed them at the same time, crying out and slamming his shoulder - and the full weight of the sack of gear - against her, sending them both sprawling painfully down several steps, though Lucretia was able to keep them from tumbling all the way down with a quickly cast Feather Fall, as the others dove down into the portal too, ducking for cover.

No sooner had Laeni - the last of them - dived in, then the portal closed behind her. At the same moment, outside there was a dull roaring of what must surely be an explosion above, shaking the ground above them and all around. Lucretia’s heart was in her throat as she lay there in total darkness, in that moment convinced that at any second the earth would cave in and crush her.

It didn’t though; for several endless, drawn out moments - it could have been an hour, for all Lucretia knew - the five of them sat in pitch black beneath the earth, listening to each others’ fast breathing as the tremors subsided.

In reality though, the blackness only lasted for a moment; presently there was a clicking sound, and Laeni was striking some sort of flint mechanism, which caused a light to flare to life, flickering and smoky, but welcome. “Judge-damn those lawrats!” she spat at her feet, glaring at Lucretia. “It’s you! They’re after you! Just try ‘n’ say they’re not!” she stared around at the others. “Damn and hellcurse her, but she’ll be the death of us all! I knew she was more trouble than she was worth!” She rounded on Lucretia. “How did they sniffout ya? Tell me! How? Is the whole Underbase imperiled? Because you be certainwise, ‘f it is, then - ”

“Laeni. She’s of use, forgetnot, whether you’ve taken a likin’ or otherways.” It was Whinlow who recovered next, with a sharp look at Lucretia that in a moment became a grim smile, the shadows of the flickering torch dancing strangely across her face. “Redmage, I’m not in the knowin’ about what action o’ yours has angered the Judges so’s they dispatched the whole force of heavenlaw on ye.” She stilled Lucretia’s protest with a hand. “Ye can weave your story to Kaen, not me, and it better be a good’n, for your lifesake. But…” she got to her feet, dusting herself off and looking down the stairs; the spiral staircase - illusory or not - went deep down into the earth, so far Lucretia couldn’t see the bottom - and she grinned, bitter amusement in her eyes as she met Lucretia’s gaze, “you’re not going back that way, redmage, that’s for certainwise. Only way from here’s down.”


	3. Tales told underground

“From another world, say you redmage?” Kaen looked up at her appraisingly from his chair behind the old crate he was using as a desk, tapping a long, ivory wand against his temple. He smiled, almost apologetically. “I’m sorry to say, you’ll have to provide plentymuch more right and proper evidence before I believe it…more’n words alone, that’s for truth.”

Lucretia stared back and studied him just as carefully, as she thought about what to say. Kaen was a tall, angular-faced elf with a mass of bright golden curls, a cracked pair of round spectacles on his nose, the light catching off the many bright rings and glass jewels in his long ears. Yet for all his rather gaudy appearance, he held a kind of quiet intensity that gave her pause, putting her in mind of nothing quite so much as the feeling of waiting for a verdict on her person. Of a measuring to match the rigorous series of interviews and tests she had had to pass to get into the Institute, all those long years ago.

And so she did what she had then; she held her head up as straight as she could and looked him dead in the eye. “Let me show you.”

Kaen arched an eyebrow, and laid aside the rather crumpled sheet of paper he had been reading before she came in, laying it carefully face down on the battered wooden table and moving a heavy old tome over it with meticulous precision. He steepled his fingers, with a slight smile. “I await it.”

Lucretia gritted her teeth, bracing herself a little for what she was about to do. Not for the magic; that would be easy enough. But the memories she would have to call to mind would hurt more; especially now, with her friends gone.

She took out her wand, touching her journal through the fabric of her robe for strength and out of habit, concentrating as she began to cast Major Image.

Colours appeared first, swirling around her wand and into the air around Kaen. They twisted together, forming for a moment a mere abstract blend, before separating into distinct forms.

Finally a scene began to coalesce; a small and cozy kitchen, the soft, pale light of the first sun before the second had risen filtering in through the crack in the light blue painted shutters. Her eyes filled with tears as the vision expanded; in the corner was a tall and rather precarious stack of books, overflow from a bookcase that covered half the wall and yet still never seemed enough.

It was so _familiar_ , this lost place; it was of course her own small apartment in the town where the Institute was based. She smiled as on the windowsill appeared the landlord’s fat orange and white cat, which had often slipped down to her window for cuddles and surreptitious treats, one of the few interruptions to her writing that she actually welcomed.

She nearly faltered then, struck by the sheer ordinariness of it, alien now in so many ways. Lucretia had cast this spell before; she was quite good at it and the vision felt real, but now it began to blur a little, her spell-casting concentration losing its edge as her eyes prickled a little with tears. Before the tears could fall though, she blinked them away, snapping herself back to the state of mind she needed to cast the spell. As she did, the vision changed. It was the grassy quad on the IPRE campus now, with mages and scientists and myriad others all hurrying back and forth, dressed in red uniforms like her own. The view zoomed in, and there was Lucretia herself as a new recruit, though barely younger in the face than she was now. She hadn’t even been there that long; the Institute had headhunted her after one of the books she had ghostwritten had become a bestseller before she had left highschool. They had been so impressed by her academic record they had fast-tracked her through the gruelling training required from fully fledged members of the Institute.

She had still worried sometimes though, because she was younger and less experienced and more nervous, it felt, than everyone else; it seemed to matter so much more then.

Yet there she was in the vision, holding an armful of books, chatting happily with several friends on the way to the library, perhaps. One of them was Merle; he was carrying a little bag with a spider plant in it slung over one shoulder, gesturing emphatically with the other hand as he spoke, though the vision had no sound.

The vision changed again. It was the Starblaster now, and all of the seven of them were there, eating dinner together in the kitchen, while Fisher floated glowing in the air beside Magnus’ head. Taako was ladelling out soup, and Davenport and Merle were helping to clear up a pack of cards that had been somehow scattered across the floor. Someone had cast Dancing Lights, which were bobbing above the table, illuminating room with a soft multicoloured glow.

Lucretia let that soundless vision linger for as long as she could before the spell ended. When it did she lowered her wand, coming back to herself, slightly embarrassed to feel her face wet with tears. “That” Lucretia said, breathing hard as she caught her balance on the upside of the upturned crate that was Kaen’s desk, “is… _was_ my home.”

Kaen blinked a few times, eyes wide for a moment, then frowning a little. “Huh” he said, visibly collecting himself. “Well, that about does it.”

“Then you see that I’m telling the truth?”

“I should say” he said slowly. Taking his time, he crossed over to the desk, lifted the book, picked up the dogeared piece of paper he had been reading, folded it several times and placed it carefully in the inside pocket of his coat. “Isn’t a mage or a storysmith neither as can make something like that so real-like, from the top of the head. I believe you’re from another world, in truth.”

Lucretia relaxed a little, yet Kaen raised a long finger in the air. “But…”

“…But?”

Taking his time, he got to his feet, coming out from behind the desk and looking her up and down with a suspicious and slightly derisive eye. “ _But_ , that story, redmage…you weren’t in it much. It doesn’t actually _tell_ me much, if you’ll be takin’ my meaning. So you’ll be appreciatin’, I have questions left. Why are you here? And what manner of a traveller, prays tell, may you be?”

She looked back at him, holding his gaze; his eyes were turquoise-green with slit pupils, and right now carried a strange look in them, half searching, half something else she couldn’t identify. She looked him up and down in turn, studying him as carefully as he seemed to be studying her. He was in fact the first person she had seen here not dressed in the charcoal greys and blacks that were so advantageous in blending into the dustlands above; instead, he wore a sort of loose green coat with belled sleeves, a little threadbare but lovingly mended many times, sewn with thread of many colours. In each place it had been mended, she saw, embroidered designs had been worked into it, intricate, abstract and strange; it was as though each scar and tear in the cloth had been transformed with determination and deliberate care into something beautiful, she thought.

She took a breath, remembering he was still waiting for an answer. “My name is Lucretia. I am the Chronicler for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. We…my crew and I, we didn’t…exactly _intend_ to come here. Not here specifically, at least. That wasn’t the plan. In light of that, I’d really like to find them and leave, and I would appreciate your help. Or at least, your… non-hindrance. Leave to continue. Sort of thing.”

“Interesting. Chronicler, hmm?” he looked thoughtful. “You tell stories for your lifeswork, redmage?”

She nodded, raising her head proudly. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

He quirked a smile. “An’ will you tell me yours, then?”

“I already showed you some of it.”

He smiled, archly. “Pictures are pretty, but they’re easier to make false. ‘Specially for a storysmith like yourself.”

She looked at the wand on his desk; yellowed, pitted and cracked ivory from some strange beast, but it had the air of divination about it. She had the impression that Kaen was not an easy person to lie to. So she nodded, rapidly deciding that here at least, the truth was the best strategy. _Or at least most of the truth_.

And so, she told him about their original mission, about their arrival in this world and the ship being shot from the sky and the disappearance of her friends when she awoke. About how she had struck out into the dustlands and been found by Whinlow and her companions, and how she had disarmed the bomb, which she gathered from his reaction he had already heard.

There were things she did not tell him, of course, although she made sure not to tell any outright lies; but she rather glossed over the fact that they had been to many worlds, that the timescale of their cycling was a year. She also didn’t mention the Hunger; she knew from past experience that telling the citizens of a new world that they may well be doomed in a year’s time didn’t always provoke the best of reactions, especially when one had limited options and was trying to ingratiate oneself.

Luckily, though, Kaen did not ask her to expound on what she had left out. He seemed most interested in her magic, asking her where she had learned it, and so she told him of her homeworld and how she had learned as a child, of being accepted into the Institute and making use of the training they provided for their mission crew to become stronger than ever. She told him - and with this, she found tears coming unbidden to her eyes yet again - of training with her friends, of energetic practice duels with Lup and Taako, of long, speculative conversations on arcane theory with Barry, and helping remind Merle what spells he could and couldn’t do, of marvelling at his god-given magic that was so impressive once he got the mechanics of it sorted out.

She spoke, and Kaen listened quietly, with no obvious reaction but to tilt his head a little when she paused. When she was finished, he nodded. “I see” he said. “So you aren’t a dragonmage or a descendant o’ one, then?”

Lucretia shook her head. “If a dragonmage is what we call a sorcerer of draconic ancestry…” she said, thinking, “then no. They do…they _did_ exist in my homeworld too, I had several friends at the Institute…” she faltered, collecting herself. “But no, I am not one.”

Kaen seemed to relax at that, picking up his wand and spinning it between his fingers. “Good. Makes everything less dustdark ‘f you’re not. Just _what_ you are, I’m still not quite clearwise but…” he stilled her words before she could say them. “It can wait some.” He put the wand down on the table. “I s’pose you’ll be wantin’ some ‘splainings out of me too, hmm?”

She nodded, a little surprised. “Yes, that would be good actually. Also, I would like some information that will help me to find my friends, if they’re still alive, and…”

But she broke off; Kaen was shaking his head, looking sorrowful. “It’s not probablelike that your friends are living yet, you know that don’t you redmage?”

She nodded, with a sinking feeling. “But I’d still like to find out what I can.”

Kaen smiled, not unkindly. “Fair and well. So, chronicler, shall I weave you a story of the Beforetimes, see how you like its weft and its warp?”

“Please do” said Lucretia, settling in to listen.

“…Very well.” Kaen’s smile was bitter. “Long ago, the dragonmages ruled over all. They were powerful, like to gods some even theorified. They were descended from dragons, so theys said, but they hunted them down; the hunts were long and bloody, and in a matter o’ three dozenyears or somesuch, all the dragons were gone. ‘Twas sport to them, you see.”

Kaen shook his head, running long fingers down the length of the ivory wand, before coming back to his story. “But nevermind the historical days; the part as concerns you is onwards, I’m certainmost.” He laughed slightly. “About thirteen dozenyears to be precisewise, when I was but a little sprogget not half grown into my ears, and bright Celemarth was still free. Not so many remember those times, here, and not just because they were of the mayfly folks, with their lives passing like that” he snapped his fingers, shaking his head sadly.

“Many, many died in the Judgement, and the dragonmages took as many with them when they went down, or more. Still…” he gave her a shrewd look. “Before all that, the dragonmages wrought…” he tilted his head, as though trying to phrase it. “They wrought for themselves… a balancing force, you see. They were cognisant of their own leaning to go to rot in their hearts, and they were dread afeared of it. And so, they created the Judges…”

“Ah yes” said Lucretia, frowning. “I’ve heard of those.”

“Doubtless you have, doubtless you have.” Kaen laughed humourlessly. “But you don’t understand from just the hearing, redmage. You can’t possibly. For the Judges…they were more than arbiters. They didn’t just hold the letter of the law in their hands…the dragonmages couldn’t just do that, oh no. No. The Judges were…they are…. _alive_. As conscious as you or I, though their hearts be of stone and twice as cold as it.”

Lucretia blinked. “Alive? How so? And what…what are they, exactly?”

In answer, Kaen took up the wand and quickly sketched a circle in the air between them. It hung there, limned in glowing purple, rapidly expanding out into a three-dimensional globe of light. Before Lucretia could ask the question on her lips, she saw a vision within, once more outlined in violet light.

A shining city on a hill. Four tall statues, placed in a circle and looking inwards and down at its top, and the view of the vision coming in so it was almost flying into one stone face, blank and impassive. But then, the statue began to move, its lips parting to issue some pronouncement that seemed to shake the very ground. It shook Lucretia too, even though the vision had no sound; it made her tremble and recoil, for reasons she could hardly articulate in words, and when the vision dissipated with a flick of Kaen’s wand she could feel her hands balled into fists, nails biting unconsciously down into the flesh of palms which had broken out into a cold sweat.

She looked back at Kaen, wide-eyed and silent. “What…”

“The Judges” he said, his eyes far away. “Absolute in their Judgement. Infallible and free o’ the shackles o’ mercy. The dragonmages made sure of that. Not a singlelone sinner could slipslide through the cracks, and this way, they thought, they’d hold themselves to account.”

“B-but…it worked too well?” Lucretia ventured, feeling a little sick to the stomach.

“Exactly thus” said Kaen, nodding. “But it was more besides. The Judges…weren’t just built to _Judge_ , redmage. For then their Judgement would rest on morals of their creators, which the dragonmages even then knew was like enough to sand.”

He laughed bitterly. “Funny that…. _sand_. But no, redmage. The Judges were…they were _beings_ , built not just to punish the sins o’ the past, but also the sins o’ the present…and the future. They could _learn_ , redmage. They could _think_ , and understand, and look to the very hearts of any poor sinful being as wanders the world. The thing separatin’ them from those that made them’s that the Judges saw _all_ sin, all cruel and petty thoughts, all the evil enmingled with the good in the entwined hearts of our people, but they were without any mercy. Not a whisp of compassion, nor a shred of hesitation.”

Lucretia nodded, eyes wide. “So…they turned on their creators?”

Kaen nodded. “Of course. The dragonmages were goldblind not to see it and they paid for that, a terrible cost. They were first. But many more followed…nay, redmage. The Judges turned on the whole world. They destroyed the outer rim of Celemarth where the ordinary folks lived in a single day; ordinariness, anything other than utter perfection, is akin to devilmancy in the stone hearts of the Judges, you see. Would have taken too long to make cases inividualike, so they destroy it _all_. Those that were allowed to live - the better classes of the city - had to come as supplicants to the Judges, suffered under days and weeks of trials and tribunals… ‘twas enough to drive many dustmad, to destroy the mind. But see, them as were destroyed, they were purged of sin, in the allsight of the Judges. That’s the way they see the world, you comprehend.”

The was a long silence. “And…and what happened then?”

“Well” said Kaen, “life carried on. Those as bided in the city lived a life of no freedom. Those as absconded…well, here as you see, we are the descendants and successors of those… we scratch out what existence we may in the desert, stealing what Beforecomer technomancy we may, running always from the Law. We send out patrols, now and then… much like Whinlow’s lot, as found you wanderin’ out there in the dustlands. Though there’s always them lawrats to watch for, crawlin’ across the land and back to the citadel of Celemarth.” He spat. “We’re always the hunted, redmage, but it’s not to be helped.”

“Why?” asked Lucretia. “Why not just stay down here where it’s safe? Is it supplies you need?”

Kaen shifted. “Supplies… is part of it. We have a… ah, a network of sympathisers, shall we say. Theys as move their camps across the dustlands, though the poor souls who bide on the surface are oft out of house and home when the duststorms blow. But we trade, and there’s always news trickling through, news from Celemarth.”

“What sort of news?”

Kaen’s eyes narrowed a little, some of the appraisal returning to them. “There’s always a need to know who’s being hunted. The law’s quarries ordinarily don’t last long in the dustlands, but if they do, then here’s where we want ‘em. Several’ve joined us that way, but too many are turned to statues, or dragged back for Trial, Judgement and Execution. That’s if the dustlands or the dread vulfins don’t kill ‘em first.” He smiled grimly. “Though of course, some prefer that option o’er t’other.”

“…I see” said Lucretia. There was a long silence; she had no idea what else to say. Her mind was awhirl; all she could think of was her companions, her friends and family….if they were alive at all, they were out there somewhere in this cruel world.

At the very least though, she knew one thing; she was alone in this world, and she might be the only one who could save them.

“But come now, redmage” said Kaen, smiling at her again, as she realised she had fallen silent for a long while. “This is dustdark talk, as isn’t for stormnights. For now, you’re welcome here…here you’ll be safe from the dark and the winds that blow afoul, until such time as they whirl about to your fortune and favour.”

If before she had had the impression that she was being tested, now she thought it seemed as though she had passed that test, though she was not certain of exactly when or how this had happened. But now Kaen extended his hand to clasp, and Lucretia stared at it for just a moment before making her decision; there wasn’t really a choice to make, anyway.

All she could do was take it.

* * *

 

“And so, what should we find but this one, awanderin’ all alone in the dustlands with naught to cover her face but hope. And then! Then she goes and disarms a Judge-damned PB, but that part’s been told and passed around and back right enough yet” said Schell, guffawing with laughter as he passed Lucretia a plate of something that looked approximately like small flat rolls of bread.

She thanked him and took one to accompany the absolutely unidentifiable but delicious-smelling dark brown stew that Milarie - a broad-shouldered dwarf who was also the mechanic here, Lucretia understood - was ladelling into a bowl for her as they sat around the fire. Several curious people had come to hear Schell’s loud and enthusiastic retelling of the story from earlier.

“There, have some of that redmage” said Milarie, giving Lucretia a hearty clap on the arm that almost caused her to drop her bowl of stew, though she saved herself at the last moment. “Magic drains your heartlife away, so they used to say in the Beforetimes. Dunno if it’s true, but eitherwhichway, you must be starven half to death.”

Lucretia nodded her thanks, realising just how hungry she really was, despite everything. She tried not to wolf down the stew - the vaguely meat-adjacent, chunky contents of which were hardly any more identifiable but more delicious even than she had expected - and tried instead to take the opportunity to look around the large underground central space, filled with several lines of rough metal trestles and benches, with a space in the centre for a large fire pit over which an array of blackened pots, cauldrons and kettles were keeping hot.

There were people sitting around in twos and threes, talking quietly over food and drink. The atmosphere was subdued, a little tense; everyone could hear the distant rumbling of the duststorm, far overhead, and people kept glancing upwards at the ceiling, as though to check that it was still secure above.

After a moment of glancing around, Lucretia spotted several faces she recognised; there was Kaen, coming in discreetly through the side door to sit down on a bench beside Whinlow and Frith, who were talking in quiet voices. As Lucretia watched he joined their conversation, the three of them together poring over something on the table that Lucretia couldn’t quite see.

A little way off from them was Laeni, stone-faced as she stared down into her bowl of stew. Even from this distance, Lucretia could see she was tense; there was a stiffness to her shoulders, and she kept glancing around the room, her sharp green-gold eyes veering from the other three to where Lucretia was seated with Schell and Milarie, then quickly around the room again. Once, Laeni’s eyes even caught on Lucretia’s gaze as she looked over; immediately, Laeni narrowed her eyes. Even as Lucretia attempted a tentative smile and half a shy wave, Laeni looked away, her derision clear.

Well, on balance Laeni was still right to be suspicious, Lucretia thought; really, she had done so little to earn any of their trust, and she knew even now that it was likely she wouldn’t be able to keep it for very long.

Looking around, she did something that had become second nature to her when arriving in a new settlement; she assessed it for safety, when the Hunger came. This place might be all right, she thought; at least it was underground, though she barely knew how far, and one of those tall columns of black tar could potentially punch through all that sand above and reach these people… and this was assuming that she could get hold of the Light.

If not, then it wouldn’t matter how far underground they were; everyone here would meet the same fate.

Lucretia swallowed a hot spoonful of stew too fast, burning her tongue and jolting herself back to reality as Schell looked over at her in concern.

“Redmage?”

“Ah….yes” she said, having already given up any hope of convincing anyone here to call her by her name and summarily given up some time ago. “S-sorry, I was just looking around.”

Schell grinned proudly. “Admirin’ the hideaway we’ve got ourselves here, hmm? Safest place in the dustlands this, I reckon.”

“Actually, yes I was wondering about this place” said Lucretia. “It’s amazing that it’s all hidden under the earth! Am I right in thinking this was carved out with magic?”

Milarie nodded. “A relic o’ the Beforecomers, this place, a storehouse as was abandoned when the Judgement came and the dusts rolled over all the lands. May not be much for a fancy manner o’ personage as yourself, but it’s better than some have it. Them’s as live on the surface camps…” she cast her eyes upwards, frowning in concern, “…I’m not envyin’ them tonight, when the dustwinds wail. Still, they scratch a livin’ same as us… and they’ll be tellin’ you they’re stronger for it.”

“Lies and falsities” said Schell, winking and flexing an arm. “I bet I could kick their sweet behinds to Celemarth an’ back, if only the poor dustlings hadn’t got it bad enough up there yet.”

Milarie gave a fond smile, punching Kaen playfully in the arm. “Not a soul’s doubting it, you big oaf.” She looked back at Lucretia. “Kaen’s done us all properight finding this place though, you know.” She dropped her voice. “If it wasn’t for the…. _connections_ he’s still surewise got…. cityways, then we’d be much worse off and that’s the last I have to say on the matter.”

Lucretia frowned. “What?”

“Oh, you know, Kaen does some…” Schell leaned in, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together and grinning, “…. _business_ , shall we say, with them lawrats. Sidelike, you know? It’s surewise helped us out something drastic. What the Enforcers don’t know don’t hurt their little heads.”

Her eyes widened, surprised at this revelation after how Kaen had spoken of the force of the law here. “Business? What sort?”

“Oh, information” said Schell. “Things as they want, in exchange for news, and for a goldblind eye turned when needed.” He seemed to see her surprise, interpreting it as alarm and reassuring her quickly. “He doesn’t go through anyone important, mind! No one as the Judges would cross-examine with their cursed all-knowing stoneheads themselves. Just a little, here and there… people who used to be friends of friends, back then…”

“Back then?” asked Lucretia. “You mean…before the Judgement?” something in his tone seemed to suggest that, she thought; there was a certain voice that these people all seemed to use when they spoke of that time, though many, including Schell himself, wouldn’t even have been born then. “Who…” she began, then stopped, realising that her questioning might be suspicious. She should pick her words carefully, even though she was growing to like and trust Schell and Milarie. “What did Kaen do, back then?”

“Did he not tell you?” said Schell. “Ah, well, it’s dustcommon knowledge hereabouts so I mays as well speak it.” He dropped his voice, leaning in closer with an air of good-natured conspiracy. “He was one of ‘em, afore the Judgement. He was a lawman, but versed too in arcane thingamajicks that I haven’t a bit o’ knowledge in my head about” he knocked on the side of his skull and laughed a little, before looking somewhat sad. “They do say he was trained by a dragonmage, and served her and learned from her and loved her as any prentice does their master, and rightly should. He grew up as somelike clerk or somesuch, writing down the letter of the law…” he smiled at Lucretia with her journal and pen out, avidly making notes as he spoke. “But that’s where my knowledge ceases, sorry to say. I know she taught him some, that master of his, but she was…” he lowered his voice, “….of the highestmost lot of the dragonmages, so it’s said. So when the Judgement came…” he tailed off, giving her a significant look. “Well, you surely’ve heard the way of it, even ‘f you’re still a youngling like me.” He looked a little abashed. “Easywise enough to forget you’re a mage just as much as those that perished in the Judgement.”

“…Hmm.” Lucretia had no idea what to say to that; she was still busy taking in what Schell had just told her and squaring it with what she already knew, so she merely frowned into the last of her rapidly cooling stew.

“Now, Schell you big lunkum” said Milarie, smacking him playfully with the handle of the ladle. “Look what you’ve gone and done, talking about mages perishin’ and such dustdark things, when surewise all our little wanderer wants to do is sleep out the night until the storm blows over.” She laid a hand on Lucretia’s arm. “What say we find you someplace to curl up for the night, if you’re through with eatin’? It’s getting on in the nighthours, but there should be some hammockings and blankets left.”

Sure enough, Lucretia realised that people had slowly begun to filter out of the hall; she had been so absorbed in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed. She also noticed something else as soon as Milarie mentioned it, which was that her eyes were beginning to prickle with tiredness; she barely knew how long it had been since she had come back to consciousness on the Starblaster, but it felt like an age, and she was exhausted both in body and in mind. She tried vainly to stifle a yawn, as she nodded. “If it isn’t….ah….too much trouble.”

“None at all, sweetdrop.”

“…Thank you.”

Schell grinned warmly, ruffling up her hair a little. “Sleep deep, redmage. Don’t let the dustworms bite.”

Lucretia smiled, rather wearily. “I’ll try.”

* * *

 

After Lucretia had gone with Milarie, Schell returned to the fireside with needle and thread, thinking to mend the tear that had appeared in his outdoor jacket, where the cloth had grown thin with wear. It was a pleasant sort of thing to do on nights when duststorms raged up above on the surface; he could hear it louder than ever, and feel the rumbling of its deadly progress across the lands above.  Even the fire danced in the grate, despite the bends, grilles and twists in the floo meant to keep the high winds at bay and the dust out.

But here beside the fire it was warm and pleasant, in a sleepy sort of way. Many of their people had already gone to sleep, curling up with their loved ones like dustmoles in their burrows.

But some were awake still; Laeni, for one, was sitting at a low table a little way off from the fire, reading a sheet of paper. He watched her for a while, the glow of the lamp turning her red curls to burnished copper as the light caught in her eyes. She looked troubled as she read, as well as some other emotion he couldn’t identify; thoughtful, perhaps, though maybe not even that. Either way, a tiny frown line had appeared between her eyes, and the tattered, scarred points of her ears were twitching almost as much as a full elf’s would, which was saying something.

Schell wondered if she was thinking of Lucretia; Laeni had been so suspicious of her earlier. Well, Schell knew that Laeni had every reason to be suspicious, with what she’d been through. He loved Laeni like the big sister she had all but been to him after he had lost his own family to the dust. But she was like this sometimes; she still wasn’t able to allow herself to trust.

Or perhaps it was just him; for reasons he couldn’t quite explain even to himself, Schell had somehow taken it into his heart and head that Lucretia was someone he could trust without quite knowing why. He had just had a good feeling about the stranger in red as soon as they saw her wandering in the dustlands, though apparently Laeni felt differently.

It was then that he realised that Laeni’s eyes were not moving. Schell frowned, laying down his needle as he watched, and realising he had been right; Laeni had simply been staring fixedly at the paper all this while. Even as he scrunched up his face in thought, trying to read her expression, she turned her eyes up to meet his, as though sensing his gaze on her. Immediately, Schell blushed and looked back down at his sewing again, having been caught staring.

But though he was expecting a cutting remark, when he looked hesitantly back up again, Laeni was getting to her feet. As she did, she caught his eye again.

“You been talkin’ to that redmage?” she said, and in her voice, to his surprise, was none of the derision he had expected.

Schell nodded. “She’s good people, Laeni. I know you’re not believin’ it, but… she’s good people.”

Laeni sighed. “Maybe so” she said, and again her voice was softer than he had expected. “Maybe so.” But a moment later, her face hardened again. “Well, time’s a-latenin’” she said, laying down the sheet of paper she had been reading on the desk. The motion caught Schell’s eye, for some reason. It was careful and deliberate, and she held his gaze while doing it, looking from him to the paper, and back to him again. “Mind” she said, her ears twitching at an even greater rate by the second, “I know you’re not one for readin’-”

“Hey! I read plentymuch!”

“-But, a duststorm’s a good time for it…perhaps the _only_ time.” Again, she looked back up at Schell, then down at the paper on the desk. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “….somethin’s tellin’ me your redmage might be helped by you doing some.”

Schell’s eyes widened. He was about to ask more, when Laeni rose to her feet, conspicuously stretching her arms. “Well, we’ll see what morning brings” she said, and with that she left the hall.

Schell was puzzled by this, to say the least; moreso because Laeni had mentioned Lucretia so; he had thought that Laeni wanted nothing to do with her. It was certainly very curious.

And so he waited a while and then got up and went over the table Laeni had just left, taking a quick look around before picking up the piece of paper she had been reading. His eyes skimmed the notice printed there in Celemarth type before locking on a small annotation at the bottom of the page.

A moment after reading it, he stood frozen, eyes wide with shock and anger, caught by indecision. A moment later though, he crumpled the paper in his hand, before throwing it into the fire; sparks flew up into the chimney as the paper was consumed.

Even as it was, Schell had made up his mind, and was marching away from the hearth.

He hated to wake Lucretia, but once he had decided his course, he knew he could not turn back. Not that there was a choice here, he knew. He knew what was right, and his course was clear.

He had to warn her, before it was too late.


	4. Collaboration

Lucretia woke to someone shaking her arm hard, an urgent whisper close above her face.

“Hey! Hey, redmage! Waken up, hasteways!”

Lucretia blinked hard a few times, momentarily disorientated as she swam into full wakefulness, the tail ends of some dark dream still gripping her. The Hunger had been there, it had been coming… that was how so many of her dreams were, and had been for decades. But usually, there were others there who understood, could share a hot chocolate in the Starblaster’s kitchen and remind her that there were months to go, or at the very least remind her - by actions and touch as much as words - that when the nightmares annually became reality, then they would at least face it together.

That wasn’t true this time. Lucretia let out her breath as the awareness of that fact came back to her, fear still gripping her.

She collected herself, squinting into the half-darkness; the fire in the dormitory had burned low, and it was almost too dark to see, until a face came looming towards her, startling her to the point that she had to stifle a cry of alarm.

A moment later she realised it was Schell, and immediately felt guilty as she saw what could only be fear in his warm brown eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but Schell shushed her with an urgent wave of his hand, beckoning her hastily. Frowning, Lucretia got out of her hammock - taking care not to fall with a crash to the floor, as she still hadn’t quite gotten accustomed to the balance of the thing - pulled on her robe that she had been using as an extra blanket, slipped into her boots on the ground and stood up, looking at Schell questioningly.

“What - ”

But he only shook his head, shushing her until she fell back into silence again. His head was darting every which way in the dormitory, she saw now. Checking, surely, whether anyone was likely to wake. She looked around too, suddenly anxious, as Schell took her by the hand, tugging her from the room on surprisingly quiet feet for such a large and burly man.

When they had made it out the door without incident, Lucretia opened her mouth to ask another question, but instead cried out in surprise as Schell began to run, dragging her along behind him through a twisting side-tunnel, with several closed doors off it. Lucretia ran after him, struggling a little to keep up with his long stride.

Just when she was about to yell at him to stop, he did, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. Lucretia looked too; the tunnel was wider here, but the ceiling was a little lower, and above their heads was a wooden hatch, or a trapdoor of some sort. Lucretia frowned, as Schell made a fist, giving her a swift grin that she supposed was meant to be reassuring, but managed to feel more the opposite. A moment later he was jumping straight upwards with his fist raised above his head, so that he punched the door with all the force of his jump. The hatch sprang wide open with a crash as Schell landed back on his feet, looking for all the world as though he were trying not to appear pleased with himself.

“You know I could have just spelled it open for you, if you had asked” said Lucretia, hands on her hips in mild annoyance.

Schell patted her on the shoulder genially. “Save them slots, redmage. You’ll need ‘em, like as not.” He jumped up again, grabbing the edge of the hatch so that he was hanging by his fingers. Then he swung his feet up and scrambled in, extending a meaty hand back down to Lucretia. “C’mon.”

She hesitated for just a moment, then took it with a sigh, letting him pull her up into the hatch and hoping she wouldn’t regret it.

They emerged in a narrow crawlspace between two built earthen walls, lined with pipes and ducts that looked scavenged, cobbled together from centuries of different machinery. But she only saw her surroundings for a moment; when Schell dropped the hatch back in place the light from below was gone, and all was black as Lucretia’s second favourite ink.

She conjured a light, and as it flared into life she saw that Schell was rooting in his pockets, looking for something. “What-?” she began, but fell silent when Schell extracted a crumpled and folded piece of paper, thrust it into her hands.

Doubtfully, she squinted at it in the dim light, unfolding it and smoothing it out so she could read.

When she did, her eyes widened in shock and the light she had conjured flickered with her resolve.

There were etchings of faces there, six of them. The mere sight of them brought a spike of mingled joy and relief and fear to Lucretia’s chest, so intense it brought hot tears to her eyes. She wiped them away, squinting at the paper. She couldn’t read the text - in this world’s unfamiliar script - that accompanied the pictures, but, she thought, this looked like some sort of official notice, heavy and bold and stamped with some kind of seal or emblem. She looked harder at it. At first she thought this was an abstract pattern, but realised a moment later was a stylised depiction of four heads, protruding into the centre of the circle, their eyes hidden by blindfolds. She drew back a little at that; even the sight of it brought a chill to her heart, as she rememembered what Kaen had told her earlier.

Lucretia’s mind raced, as her eyes ran over the notice once more. She looked up at Schell, a question on her lips, but he gestured to the bottom of the page, where there was something else; a handwritten scrawl in the same script, the ink blotted and smudged as though it had been done in a great hurry.

Now when Lucretia met Schell’s eyes, he looked back at her. “That’s them?” he said, in a low growl. “Thems as you call your friends, that is?”

She nodded, looking back at the paper. “Schell, what does this mean?” she was already scanning the script; she had deciphered ancient and forgotten languages before; she knew how to do it, but now, she couldn’t help feeling she hadn’t the time for academic curiosity.

“Notice of their arrest, due for trial citywards in Celemarth…I’m sorry” said Schell, placing his hand on Lucretia’s arm. “We…we brought these back from Rhein’s tradepost, out west in the dustlands….we were newsgatherin’, if you see…” he looked pained, his eyes fixed on the notice as though tormented by some great guilt. “….This was….straightwise afore we found you….”

“What does it mean though? Arrested, you said? Does it say what the charges are?”

Schell gave her a strange look. “Well, says here _violation of airspace_. But the final charges… dunno. Folks don’t get to know full charges ‘til the trial, redmage. You get caught for anywhichthing, they look in your heart and see your full crimes, past ‘n’ present ‘n’ future, and the penalty comes alongways aside ‘em.”

Despite the grimness of his words, Lucretia felt hope welling up; it was more than she had had before at least. Surely it was something. She waved the paper at him. “But…this means they’re alive, aren’t they? I have to go save them!”

But Schell was shaking his head. “I’m… I’m so sorry redmage. But even if thems as you love’s alive now, they’re due for trial…thems as go to trial got their days a-countin’ down, and we’d never make it to Celemarth in time, even if we could somehow get them out o’ that fortress crawlin’ with lawrats…”

Lucretia frowned, biting her lip. “Perhaps. But… back up for a moment. It’s a _trial_. They’re innocent, so they should be able to be acquitted and go free, at least in theory… right?”

Schell looked at her as though she’d grown a second head. “Course they can’t. Doesn’t you know how the law works?”

“Uh…” _Apparently not here_ , she thought. She forced herself to calm down. “But…they haven’t been tried yet?” she said. She was thinking about the things that the seven of them had had to do to survive, the terrible decisions that they had had to make. Based on what Kaen had told her of the judges earlier, she didn’t want to think about her friends and how they would fare placed in such a situation. “But we have to try! There might still be time to save them! I mean… you… you obviously don’t have to come with me, but _I_ have to go. If you can just help me get to Celemarth…”

But Schell was shaking his head. “Sorry redmage… I _wish_ I could help you save your friends. But you’ve got biggermost concerns. It says they seek the _seventh harbinger_ ” he said grimly, “and the law…they send people to _collect_ , mark me redmage.”

 _So that was it_. She shuddered. “B-but…” she couldn’t help a glance up at the dark ceiling above her. Suddenly the small space in which they huddled didn’t feel quite so secure anymore. “We’re safe here, aren’t we?” she thought for a moment, realising the awful truth. “No, I’m sorry. Perhaps if I’m here, I’m bringing danger down on all of you…”

But Schell was shaking his head again, looking positively heartbroken and more than a little angry. The effect was slightly alarming, but she got the feeling that they anger was not directed at her. For he was pointing shakily at the scrawled note at the bottom of the paper. “It’s….not safe for you here, but lawrats isn’t thems as you’ve got to fear most” said Schell. “ _K has decided_ ” he read, in a hushed voice filled with suppressed anger. “ _Red’s more trouble than she’s worth. When the dust storm clears, they’ll come for her._ ”

“What…” her mind raced, her voice dropping as though there were listening ears all around. Which there might have been, for all she knew. “What does it mean?”

Schell gritted his teeth, looking pained. “I never liked it” he growled, “the business he did with ‘em. Wasn’t supposed to find out, but I did, when I was just a pipsqueakling of a curious boy. He explained it to me…said…said it was for the good of us all. Keep and protect only thems as is useful, turn traitor on thems as might be trouble. Said it was how you survive out here, by giving the twisted lawrats what they want once in a dustmoon. Or more often. Makes ‘em leave us alone, or so he says. And… at the time, I…” Schell took a shuddering breath, disgust on his face, “I could believe that, because he was Kaen, and he had survived, and he protected us all…”

Lucretia gasped in shock. “Kaen…he’s…collaborating with the agents of the law?”

Schell laughed bitterly. “Only in little ways. Most wanderlings he’ll take in, but some, if the price is right…” he shook his head. “Kaen was a dragonmage’s clerk and it…still shows. _Thems as live with dustsnakes never unlearn how to bite_ , they say.” He gritted his teeth. “But…it’s not _right_ , redmage. I know that now. So…” he balled his hands into fists. “I made a choice. And I’m saving you if I have to steal you away in the very duststorm’s heart itself.”

Lucretia realised she was holding the paper hard enough to turn her knuckles pale, and forced herself to relax, her breath catching in her throat nevertheless. “Schell…” she realised suddenly what a hard choice this had been for him; this place was his home, his family, and saving her meant turning against it.

She realised she probably shouldn’t trust him; what was in this for him, after all? But she realised, too, that she _wanted_ to trust him; the truth was, he reminded her so much of Magnus that it almost hurt not to.

One part of her screamed that once she started relying on reasoning like that she was lost for sure. Yet, she reasoned, he had no reason to wake her and let her in on all this if her were just going to sell her out; surely if he was planning something like that, simply knocking her out or kidnapping her from where she slept would have been far easier.

“You’re thinkin’ as you don’t trust me, I’ll wager” said Schell, with a bitter laugh. “Well, I can prove that I - ”

He broke off, as a tolling bell cut through the night air, echoing through the tunnels. His eyes went wide with fear as they met Lucretia’s. “…All clear” he said. “Dust storm’s over…”

Her heart jumped to her throat as she remembered the words of the note. _When the dust storm clears, they’ll come for her_. As the words passed through her mind though, she felt a sense of clarity and purpose return to her. This was something she knew; being chased and hunted by a clear and present enemy was at least familiar, with the decades she and her friends had spent running, always keeping - somehow - one step ahead.

She got to her feet and drew her wand again, as Schell stood up too in the small space. “Schell” she said, clutching the paper to her chest, then placing it carefully into the pocket of her robe with her journal. She began to prepare to cast Suggestion, just in case he was unwilling. “Thank you for telling me. But I…I can’t allow you to be harmed for the sake of saving me. I can escape from here, but I want you to go back and pretend nothing ever - ”

She was interrupted though, by the sound of footsteps in the corridor they had come through, before a great pounding of something heavy on the trapdoor to their crawlspace; the only reason it didn’t fly off its hinges was because Schell was standing on it. Immediately, he began to tear pieces of pipe off the wall with his bare hands, filling the room with steam and sprays of sparks as he threw the pieces to the floor on top of the trapdoor. Lucretia flinched violently at each shuddering crash, and Schell grasped her arm to steady them both as there came another blow.

Wildly, she ran through possibilities in her head; she hastily abandoned her previous spell, beginning to cast something that could blast and burn; in this moment, she knew, there was nothing to be done but to face the threat without fear. She had to be like Lup now, she thought; fearless in the face of danger. _When she saw Lup again, she would tell her all about this. That was assuming that she could fight her way up to the surface, and get out of here without being caught…_

Lucretia gritted her teeth, preparing to let out a blast of force that would break the trapdoor and push back those who were hammering on it from the other side, and hopefully they could take it from there. But even as she did, she heard Schell cry out, and at the last moment, she felt his hand close around her wrist, pulling her wand arm around in a half circle so that she was facing in the other direction, towards the blank wall on the other side. Lucretia was shouting too, in alarm and shock, but even as she did so the spell erupted from her wand, unable to be stopped.   
The rebound shook her whole arm, and dust erupted from the wall, filling the small space. But through the dust, Lucretia realised she could see light filtering in; pale, dim grey light, but light all the same, and, for that matter, daylight; she was sure it could not be anything else, and despite the racing urgency filling her the sight made hope rise a little higher within her.

Not that she could see where the light was coming from; the cloud of dust was clearing a little, but all she could see through the ragged hole in the wall was a long room full of indistinct, shadow-draped angular shapes. Not that she had much time to look; Schell was already pulling her through the opening, still holding her wrist, a makeshift club made of a chunk of pipe in his hand.

As Lucretia ran into the room, she frowned in recognition, looking around at the several blocky machines surrounding her. They were cars, unmistakably similar to the one she had arrived in, not so many hours ago. On the side of the closest one was a bracket, holding the rod - a wand, charged with a crude teleportation spell that was just sufficient to get the vehicle to the surface - that was glowing violet.

But then she whirled as another voice spoke behind the two of them, hard-edged and cutting.

“Took you longwise enough.” A derisive click of the tongue. “You got her?”

Lucretia flinched again, so hard she almost dropped her wand, as she turned around to stand in a defensive position. Her eyes widened as she saw a shadowy figure emerge from the cloud of dust, for a moment nightmarish and distorted, of terrifying bulk but bearing two long claw-like limbs where arms should end in hands. A moment later though, as the dust parted a little, she saw that it was only a person, though carrying a vast shield and a fearsome spiked mace strapped to their back - which had made the figure look monstrous in silhouette for a moment - wielding two blades and dressed in dustland gear, save for the mask and headwrap.

Seeing that this was in fact a person assuaged Lucretia’s initial wild panic, but it did not have a chance to abate much. For a moment later when she saw that it was Laeni, and the look in her face was one of displeasure and determination. She held a shortsword in each hand, her body tensed in a fighting stance, blocking the way.

She was also covered in blood, splattered across her face and soaking dark into the grey of her clothes, dripping bright and gleaming crimson from both sword blades and onto the ground at her feet.


	5. Pursuit

Laeni wiped one of the two swords on her trouser leg then tossed it to Schell. “Should be steelarmed if we’re true goin’ on this fool escapade. That’s just sense.” She saw his look, giving a wry smile. “Only lightly used. Promise.”

Schell raised an eyebrow at Laeni as he caught the sword easily by the hilt, taking in the sight of her covered in blood. “Fall in a big can o’ drakefruit paste on the way, did ya?”

She snorted. “Not exactwise. Had a….let’s say, had an encounterin’. Unexpected-like.”

Schell grimaced. “Kaen’s true found out, then. How?”

“Dunno. Maybe you weren’t quite kittenfeetly enough gettin’ her out.” Laeni gestured at Lucretia with a thumb. “ _Or_ he’s just got this place tripspelled halfway to next quintenary. But he’ll’ve found out soon enough by all roads, so let’s be gettin’ on one o’ our own hastewise, hmm?”

Schell’s answer was drowned by a clattering, from the direction of the ragged hole where Lucretia had blasted the wall open. Her eyes widened in fear as she saw figures scrabbling in the dust, the shouting and ringing of metal indicating that their pursuers were breaking through the trapdoor to the crawlspace; from there, they had a clear path to the three of them.

Laeni seemed to notice at the exact same moment, dropping down into a guard stance with her sword, as well as the oversized shield she had slung over one shoulder. But Lucretia barely noticed, as she pulled out her wand, throwing up a wall of stone where the gap was.

“That should hold them for a while” she said nervously, as Laeni gave her a slightly derisive nod. Lucretia winced; she could hear yells of anger, hammering on the other side of her stone wall, and it sounded like more were coming. “I recommend we, uh, get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible, though…”

Schell nodded, going to the car as though nothing had happened. “I’m all for that.” He laid a hand on Lucretia’s shoulder, giving her a warm, reassuring smile. “Redmage, you’re tremblin’ like a shattersnipe.” He must have seen her looking at Laeni lowering her weapons, in extreme caution. “Laeni may look frightsome but she’s good people, promise. She’s here to get us out. Get somewhere safe.”

“That’s a question an’ a quarter,” Laeni interjected, narrowing her eyes at him. “What d’you plan to do with her aft, may I be askin’?”

“Uh… you know…” said Schell, earnest, but fidgeting - with slight nervousness - with the hilt of his sword. It was immediately clear to Lucretia that he had barely thought any of this through. He quailed a little, under Laeni’s piercing glare. “Uhhhhhh we could….take her to Jhex?”

Laeni blinked. “ _Jhex?_ Schell, what in the judgedamned…” she tutted, shaking her head as she broke off. “What would _Jhex_ do with her, now?”

“Uh, I dunno. Hadn’t thought that far, truth-be-given.”

Laeni scoffed. “Yes, that’s plain as the beforeskies. You dolt, Schell.” She winced, at the sound of a louder crashing and banging on the other side of the wall. “Jhex isn’t running a home for lostlings… he’s got things to do, lawrats to give the knifeslip, problems same as us. Worse, even.”

“But she’s got magic stuff! He’d like that. And even if he didn’t, Jhex is good people, Laeni… and powerful. Remember what he did for us, back then…?”

“Course, but Jhex surewise has more’n enough to knot his tail round thricely. Besides…” her face turned grave. “The last we heard of him he was…” she tailed off, as Schell’s face fell. “Otherwise engaged.”

“He’s got to be out of there now, though!”

“Well, mayhap. But still, we’d’ve a need to get to him, all up in that fucking dustcursed city of stone…”

Lucretia looked doubtfully from Schell to Laeni, then back to Schell again, as they argued, listening to the banging and thumping on the outside wall, as Kaen’s people tried to force their way in. They had magic-users, she knew - though few of them - and all it would take was one spell. She couldn’t help her heart beating fast like the ticking of a clock, nor the sense that they were running out of time.

_Yet, would she even be any safer with these two?_

She didn’t like it; she hated not knowing who to trust. _Usually there were people she could trust implicitly, who trusted her too, but here_ …

“Laeni, please” said Schell, clearly catching something of the urgency in Lucretia’s stance, or at least hearing the alarming sounds coming from the wall.

Laeni gave a long-suffering sigh. “Alright. But wait, one moment.” She came up close to Lucretia, quick as a cat despite her rather imposing height and strength. Her lip curled. “Listen, redmage. You may have charmed this big oaf, but you’ll not charm me so easy. I’m watching, and if you prove to be dead weight… well, the dust’s always hungry.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Lucretia stared back, trying to turn her face to stone so that the tremble in her lip did not show. It was hard, though, to be fearless when standing face to face with a blood-drenched woman who could probably break her in half at the very best of times. “And you’re hardly the most charming yourself,” she managed. “Maybe you should, uh, I don’t know, work on that.”

Before Lucretia could react Laeni was grabbing her by the chin, tight enough to bruise, and lifting her so that she was forced to stand on her toes. Laeni’s face was twisted in sudden anger, and what looked almost like guilt, blood dripping down her cheek, clotting in her bright spray of ginger hair as her brows knitted. “I killed two poor sons o’ dustfucks today” she spat.

“Laeni!” hissed Schell, from behind them. “We’ll have time for tense stare-downs later! Get her in the car and get in yourself.”

She ignored him, narrowing her eyes at Lucretia. They were piercingly green, with little golden flecks in them, Lucretia noted. “Thems as be spy-tattlin’ to Kaen, for his coward’s schemes with them lawrats. They weren’t bad to start - no one is - but he made ‘em bad, made ‘em like him soon as they agreed to that.” She shook her head. “Don’t make me regret saving-”

“ _Get down!”_

Schell’s voice rang in her ears, but at the same moment there was another large crash behind them, as a great ragged, smoking hole appeared in Lucretia’s wall. She barely had time to register it, as a mere moment later the breath was knocked out of her, and she was falling to the ground, Schell’s weight on top of her, crushing the air from her lungs.

When he finally pulled her back to her feet - she was already drawing her wand again even as he drew his sword - she saw Laeni standing in front of the hole in the wall for just a moment, sword raised. On her arm was that great shield, held at guard. Even as Lucretia watched it began to pulse with magic, turquoise energy running around the runes set in its steel rim and linking into an arcane circle which, after a moment, projected outwards, forming an intricately woven shield of light that expanded to the size of the room, out to the walls to cover all three of them. Vision through the shield was distorted, like ancient glass, and sound was somehow deadened. But she could see and hear enough; there were figures dressed in grey and black dustgear, already beginning to clamber through the hole blown in the all.

“Laeni!” yelled Schell from behind her, bringing her back to her senses. She realised it had only been an instant. “Don’t tarry! We can’t fight all of them, but we can still outrun them…”

Laeni hesitated there for a moment more, then turned, her great shield now swung onto her back, still projecting its spell. The magic was very impressive, Lucretia had time to note; if they survived this she must try to mend fences with Laeni so that she could get a better look. A magic missile ricocheted off it, hitting the ceiling and blowing a crater in its rough surface.

“Thought you always liked to stand and fight, you big idiot” Laeni laughed, through gritted teeth, as Schell began to drag Lucretia to the car and she ran after.

“Not a good time for it!”

“Seconded.”

They got to the car, and Schell opened the baggage cage in the back. “Well? What’re you waiting for redmage? Go, go, go!”

And then, a voice from the other door, muffled and distorted by the shield’s enchantment. But it was a voice she recognised, and as she turned to look, she saw Kaen, lowering his ivory wand.

“Redmage!” Kaen cried. “Don’t run with these doomed fools. I know how to find your companions…I can help you get back to them!”

Lucretia hesitated for a split second, struck with sudden doubt; all her instincts were screaming contradictory things in her head.

“We can help you if you stay!”

She was jolted out of the shock those words caused her, as Schell cuffed her on the side of the head. “Hey! Hey! Redmage!” He snapped his fingers under her nose. “Don’t be listenin’ to him! He’s just out to capture you and keep you and sell you to the lawrats, or thems as is worse, dustfuck evil coward as he be!”

Lucretia pinched the bridge of her nose, mind whirling. On one hand, she hardly knew these people; she didn’t even know that Schell was on her side, and she didn’t trust Laeni as far as she could throw her without magic, which wasn’t very far. She didn’t know if the people on her tail would be better or worse; Kaen might be planning to save her from kidnappers, rather than sell her to whatever passed for the law here. There was something ringing in her ears too; it was as though Kaen’s voice contained some magic, compelling her with more than just words.

But the shield, she realised a moment later, was at least partially blocking it. And as soon as that thought crossed her mind, she was able to shake her head loose of it, like water from her ears after diving down deep.

Her mind was clearer now, and she could think. Yet still, there was an insistent doubt there; she had never been good at making choices for herself, of this she was painfully aware. And up to now, she had not really needed to; not on her own, at least. Matters of trusting or being wary of strangers were usually left to Taako and Lup to decide between them, the two of them having at some point developed preternaturally good - though often opposing - instincts for such things.

But the twins weren’t here now; none of her friends were. Assuming they were alive at all, they were out there in that great dusty wasteland of a world.

And it may well be that Lucretia was the only one who could help them.  

Lucretia felt Schell tugged at her sleeve, glancing behind him nervously to where they could hear muffled shouting and sounds of spells being deflected off Laeni’s shield at the other wall. Laeni herself was already clambering into the driver’s seat, the shield hooked for now over the side. She started the car, revved the engine. “Hurry her along, Schell!”

“C’mon, redmage. Get in.”

Again, Lucretia felt fear wash over her, just as Schell clattered open the door to the cage. Her journal in the pocket of her robe shifted, knocking against her heart that beat against the inside of her chest like a frightened bird. If her friends were dead, then she was the only one left, she shouldn’t trust these people, but then, she couldn’t trust Kaen either. She couldn’t trust anyone, but she was all alone, and she had to get out, she had to. She was the one who would carry on the story; she had always been aware of that, but never more so that now.

Lucretia looked at Schell, at the cage, and at the people running towards them, in that moment, frozen by indecision, her mind awhirl as the full extent of her situation hit her. She felt blank with panic suddenly, unable to move.

After an unknown length of time, Laeni’s voice broke through, filtering towards her as though from far away.

“Do it, Schell.”

“But Laeni - ”

“I said do it!” Laeni’s voice rose as they heard the sound of shouts. “Pick her up and shove her in the crate, afore they blast us to smitherlings! Or leave her, just get movin’!”

“…No” said Schell, and to her surprise, his words were softer. “No, Laeni, stop. This isn’t how we do this.”

“What?”

“I’m not gonna force her, Laeni! And I won’t be leavin’ her behind.”

“Well, come up with somethin’ aught then!”

Schell took a breath, letting his heavy hands fall on Lucretia’s shoulders.

“Redmage…”

“I-”

“Redmage!” he squeezed her shoulders, stared straight into her eyes. “Listen, they’re after all of us now. So, let me make the same promise as thems as’ll do you wrong…” there was desperation in his voice. “Get in and _we_ can take you to your lost ones!”

Lucretia’s eyes widened, taken by surprise. “You promise?” she blurted, her mouth overtaking her brain in eagerness.

“Yes!” gasped Schell, “yes, I promise! Laeni?”

“What? What are you shilly-shallyin’ for?”

“Promise you’ll help take her to her friends, once we’re away!”

Laeni winced and grasped the steering wheel as there was a resounding crash at the door. “Schell you big oaf, are you duststruck? Them’s as good as statues now-”

“Maybe not! And we owe her the chancin’ to find out!”

“That’s a deathsnare and even fools should know it!”

“ _Please_ Laeni! Promise - ”

“Alright!” she yelled, as the door began to splinter, “Fine! I promise, dust take me! Now get in the car and stop gawkin’ like sandmoles!”

Schell gave Lucretia a look and she nodded hastily, slightly stunned as another spell attack exploded off the shield behind them. Schell needed no further signal; with ease he lifted her over one shoulder and dropped her unceremoniously into the cargo cage - though he didn’t close the hatch on top - before climbing up onto the back of the cage himself, holding on with one hand and brandishing his sword with the other. “Go, go, go!”

Laeni wasted no time; as soon as Schell was aboard - and before Lucretia had righted herself - she was slamming on the accelerator, knocking Lucretia’s head so hard against the inside of the chassis that she saw stars.

Even as she did so, there was a yell of frustration, and a burst of magic ricocheting off their shield - still on the car’s side as they drove headlong away - in a glancing blow, as they made their escape. It was the only way out, but it made Lucretia feel horribly exposed. The last thing she saw was Kaen, standing with his face twisted by fury in the hole in the broken wall.

Others in charcoal-coloured dustgear surrounded him, pouring through the gap, but she barely noticed them; she was staring at Kaen, her first clear view of him since her conversation in his office. No longer blurred by the shield’s magical projection. his hands and his ivory wand crackled with power. But there was something different to his face, too; his skin seemed to have taken on a greenish cast, shimmering with some iridescence, an unexpectedly familiar pattern… _dragon scales?_ Lucretia gasped; she knew that look, the telltale sign of a sorcerer, and a powerful one at that.

She didn’t have time to think too much about it though. Schell lunged sideways and hurled a dagger back at him, but Kaen raised a hand, sending it ricocheting off a shimmering barrier of his own, leaving him unharmed.

But even the sight of him behind was not enough to distract Lucretia from what was coming up ahead of them, with alarming speed; there was a sort of runway, beyond which the hangar ended in a blank, solid wall. Towards which Laeni was heading at an eye-watering speed.

“Laeni!” squeaked Lucretia, “you’re going to hit-”

“Not if you make yerself useful for once, redmage!” She took her hand off the wheel for a moment, gesturing in front of Lucretia.

Lucretia blinked. “What?”

“Wand!” screamed Laeni. “Big purple button!”

Before she had even finished speaking - and with moments to spare before they hit the wall - Lucretia understood, scrabbling for the wand she had noticed in the bracket on the outer chassis of the car. She nearly fumbled it in her fingers, and for one fearful moment she thought she might drop it. But instead her hands steadied, enough to slam the big purple button on one end.

Even as he did, the whole car simply dematerialised. Lucretia felt a strong, moderately nauseating sensation that she recognised as crudely cast teleportation magic, her mouth dry and her limbs trembling. Physically speaking, it also reminded Lucretia far too much of being torn apart limb from limb while also having a serious head cold, an experience she had had only once before and did not wish to repeat.

But even as she was beginning to scream, they were materialising again, and the grey light of the surface was hitting her eyes. Dust also blew into them as soon as the violet light faded enough for her to open them to look about. It blew into her mouth too, and momentarily she was coughing, eyes streaming as she choked on too-dusty air.

“Put on the mask, redmage” she heard Laeni say, revving the engine in exasperation, kicking up yet more dust. “Dust storm’s been past, but isn’t gone quite yet…”

Lucretia did as she was told, scrabbling blindly for the mask Schell handed her and pulling it onto her face, even as the fierce, stinging wind blew her hair over her eyes. Somehow though, she eventually managed to clip the mask fast around her head and pulled up her hood, tucking it in to keep as much dust out as possible.

Immediately it became easier to breath, and though her vision was narrowed down by the smoked glass eye-holes, at least her eyes were no longer burning in the wind. She could see her surroundings now; the car was moving already, slowly up a the gentle slope of a dustdune. As she looked around though, a flash of violet caught her eye; behind them, another car like their own had materialised in the slight depression in the dust below which - presumably - the camp lay.

“Laeni, gun it!” yelled Schell; his voice was muffled by the mask, but she could recognise reckless exhilaration when she heard it.

“Here goes dustfuck nothing!” screamed Laeni back, and hastened to obey.

The immediate jolt of speed knocked Lucretia against the side of the cage again, bruising her arm and her ribcage. But she couldn’t even hear her own cry of pain over the roar of the engine, the rushing sound of dust kicked up by the chunky tires.

Dust blew into all their faces; much, much more than before. She craned her head back; ahead, she could see the great dark mass of the storm that had just passed over, lit from the inside with flickers of lightning. Lucretia cowered in on herself instinctively; it was habit now, when the sky went dark. But she forced herself to stay focussed; she had lost them time when she had panicked before, she knew. She could feel the glass covering her eyes becoming pitted and sandblasted with it already. Quickly, she cast Mending on it, but within a few minutes it was as though she had done nothing.

“Dust storm’s still a-tail-endin’!” yelled Laeni, over the roaring. “Mayhap if we drive in we’ll lose ‘em in it…”

“Sure, long’s we don’t die first!”

They all winced, as further ahead in the storm there came a renewed burst of lightning, thunder rumbling so deep they felt it in the earth. Schell yelled out a string of curses, pushing Lucretia down through the bars of the cage as a new wave of sand and dust swept over them, borne by the wind. Then he brightened, raising his head. “Laeni, your shield! We can use roof-o’er-head…like we did as lostling kids, remember?”

She actually turned around in the front seat to look up at him. “We need it to block their spells!” they all ducked, as a bolt of crackling purple energy underlined her point by arcing over their heads, just singing the top of Schell’s hood.

He gritted his teeth, flashing a look back at the car, then at Laeni, then at Lucretia. “Redmage, help me hold them! And we can put up the shield in front, and go through the storm…”

Lucretia blinked, eyes filled with tears; she could barely see, and this plan was… well, worthy of certain of her own friends. She bit her lip.

Then she nodded. “Let me stand up, and I’ll help…”

Laeni snorted. “You’re clearwise duststruck, the both of you. But this just might work.”

Schell grinned down at Lucretia, leaning over the cage from the top and extending a hand. “You heard her. Want to help?”

Lucretia wanted nothing more than to say that she didn’t, couldn’t, she was only a chronicler, and she had to survive… but she quashed the impulse, almost as soon as it had appeared. This _mattered_ ; this was her way out, this was her way to save herself, and therefore to save her friends. Even if this whole damned world that seemed to be out to kill her was destroyed, she was the only one who could save them.

Forcing a smile, Lucretia took Schell’s gloved hand in hers and let him pull her to her feet.

* * *

The air grew thicker, greyer, as they approached the storm. The projection of Laeni’s shield - that Schell had tied to the front of the car with rope - illuminated the whirl of dust, making it even more opaque and difficult to see through. But nevertheless, they were protected; the shield kept out the worst of the dust, leaving a clear wake as it ploughed through the storm. Even the wind was calmer within, in a little bubble around their car.

That, though, was not what Lucretia was worried about right now.

She watched, as Schell clung to the outside of the cage. He had done this before, he said, but even so she envied his balance as he held his sword at guard, or threw daggers back at their pursuers. From inside the cage, she was casting spells when she could, as well as blocking those coming at them from the two mages and the archer with a quiverfull of enchanted arrows, all hanging from the bars and cages lining the chassis of Kaen’s car. The lights of the spells and the exploding arrow blasts lit the inside of their muted, dustless bubble in eerie glows, in counterpoint to the lightning above.

Kaen had caught up with them a little while ago, even reaching the tail-end of their little bubble of shelter before they entered the storm proper. This was just what they had hoped to avoid, but the car was just behind, drawing closer by the moment.

“So, you two betrayed me for _her_ ” Kaen shouted, voice magically magnified, mouth twisted in a sneer. “I did but wonder what t’would take. What sentiment…that dullard Jhex always did raise his precious lostlings up soft and weak as flutterbells. Can’t survive in this world like that!” Kaen grinned cruelly, shooting a blast of necrotic energy at Schell.

He dodged it, furious. “Jhex would surewise be proud of us for this! It’s wrong to sell them’s as come t’you for aid, and you know it!” Schell screamed back at him. “I couldn’t do it anymore!”

“Oh, yes, I was counting the days until you fell to it…the dust takes thems as gets too soft, you know that don’t you boy?”

“Shut your wordhole, judge-damned greenmage!” spat Schell, hurling another dagger. It was his last, Lucretia saw; but she only had a glimpse before she had to fling herself down to the bed of the cage, as Kaen raised his wand in answer, channeling a huge fireball right at the car. When she raised her head again she saw that Schell has also managed to dodge, just, tossed to one side but clinging on as Laeni turned around and hollered curses at him before turning back to the wheel. Nevertheless, it had been a near miss; a smell of singed cloth came off Schell and he patted hastily at his sleeve, which was smoking. Laeni was leaning on the accelerator, and the other car seemed to be losing ground on them, so Schell leaned down to Lucretia. “You good, redmage?”

She nodded, unsteadily; despite the rattling and shaking of the car she was fairly certain none of her bruises were in fact broken bones. “Sure.” She frowned. “I can help…”

“Got enough spells left?”

Lucretia grimaced; that would be a problem. She was fast running out of spell slots, and if Schell knew that then surely Kaen’s people would too. She had cantrips, but she didn’t think that would be enough to hold them off for long. “For now.”

“Got a shield type o’ thing? Cause - ” he grimaced, dodging another arcane explosion of light so that it missed the top of his head by inches “- Laeni’s shield is frontwise against the dust, but we could use one bad up here…”

Lucretia shook her head, aggrieved. “I can give you some, um, some pretty fucking dope magic armour, but that’s about it…”

“That’ll do!”

She cast mage armour on him, and he grinned as the golden glow of it wove its way up his arms and legs and across his chest. “It’s not that much, but - ”

But even as she spoke, another spell came out of the dust, straight at Lucretia. Before she could move or speak, Schell was lurching to the side, still clinging to the outside of the car but throwing himself in front of the beam of crackling purple energy. She gasped, her eyes going wide as the arcane armour pulsed with light, rippling for a moment as Schell grimaced, nearly losing his balance from the force. But a moment later, the armour absorbed the energy, glowing brighter gold, and Schell righted himself, and smiled. “Wow, redmage. That surewise is…what was that you said?”

Lucretia blinked, then let out a laugh despite herself. “Some pretty fucking dope magic armour?”

“Yes!” grinned Schell. “That’s the one!” He kept smiling even as he turned back to the front of the car. “Laeni! How goes the storm?”

“We’re on the edge of it still, i’ve been a-skirtin’ us roundwise! I’ll pull us out when we’ve lost ‘em!”

“It’ll have to be soon!” Schell yelled in pain as another magic missile hit him in the stomach; the mage armour kept it from breaking through, but it still looked like it hurt. Lucretia winced. “We can’t hold ‘em for much longer!”

Laeni nodded, gritting her teeth. “Then…hold on… I’m gonna do dartaway!”

“Laeni, are you sure that’s a good -”

The rest of his sentence was cut off, by the sudden roar of the engine and a bone-rattling sideways jolt as Laeni swerved the car to the right. Lucretia thought she might have screamed as she clung desperately to the bars, barely managing to hang on as the car tilted. She was momentarily blinded as the shield at the front of the car was at the wrong angle for the briefest moment, and she was thrown briefly out of its lee and the dust cloud enveloped her.

A moment later though, the car had righted, and she found herself clinging on to the cage with shaking hands, her teeth gritted as she blinked wildly behind her the dust-pitted glass of her mask. The visibility was terrible, but the wind had lowered, and the dustcloud surrounding somehow looked less concentrated, with more of the flat, white-grey light of early morning filtering in.

Suddenly, there came a triumphant woop from behind her. “Eyyy! Dragonards, Laeni, that was a heck’n’a half. Did we lose ‘em?”

Lucretia cricked her neck back up to the sound of Schell’s voice; she couldn’t see much of his face for his mask, but she could hear the absolutely delighted grin on his face as he yelled with sheer exhilaration.

Laeni, though, still sounded grim. “Not if ya keep up the hollerin’, ya big trundlebutt.”

“Ah, no need t’be so.” Schell was still grinning as he saluted Laeni at the front of the car, then squinted off into the dust cloud, which Lucretia could see as a defined mass behind them, now; that must mean they were mostly out of the storm, but the other car was nowhere to be see.

“They wont’a been readyin’ for it, though,” continued Schell, “and they’re heavier, sittin’ on more momentum, they’ll have to swerve all around a-which-a-ways in there.”

“Maybe so an’ maybe no” said Laeni darkly. She glowered over her shoulder, after swerving deftly around a cluster of broken grey boulders that rose up in their path from the dust, throwing up a great grey spray of the stuff. “That redmage still holdin’ it together?”

Schell looked down to her too, as solicitous as one might be when clinging to the back of a moving vehicle in a duststorm, even if only on the outskirts of it. Lucretia grimaced, letting go of the cage gingerly to give him a weary thumbs up. Schell beamed, and shouted back to Laeni. “All good here!”

“Well, let’s just - ”

But at that moment, Lucretia caught a flash of movement, at the corner of her eye. She shouted in alarm to Schell, and he whirled, so that a moment later both of them saw it at once; a car, emerging from the dust cloud. On top of it, they caught a flash of green, and both gasped as they realised what it was.

A figure limned in sickly green light, and from their back, a pair of near-fluorescent green, iridescent draconic wings unfurled, glowing and shimmering even in the flat grey light of this place. The figure was wielding a long wand; even from this distance, Lucretia felt a chill as she recognised the feeling of the magic rolling off it in waves.

“It’s Kaen!” shouted Schell. “An’ thems as was with him.” He snarled in frustration. “Judge damn them, but how’d they get out the storm so?” He looked down at Lucretia. “Redmage, you know what that green thing-a-ling he’s doing is about?”

She shook her head, nervous. “It’s powerful, though.” Certainly a higher level magic than she was capable of, that was for sure. It looked like sorcerer stuff, she found herself thinking again. Not her own area of expertise, but then, he couldn’t be… she frowned. “It almost reminds me of -”

“Hush up with the academic speculation!” yelped Laeni. “They’re gaining on us!”

To underline her point, a red bolt of light shot over her head, barely missing her as it struck the bars of the cargo cage, heating the metal to a dull red glow that forced Schell to wrench his hand back from it, hissing and cursing and holding on only with his feet for a moment. “Go faster then!” he snapped back, but Laeni seemed not to be listening; she was concentrated now, staring intently forward, as though willing the car on through sheer force of determination.

Not that Lucretia looked for long; for when she looked back again, there was Kaen’s car, alarmingly close even compared to before. Throwing caution to the winds, Lucretia leaned out sideways, holding onto the bars with one hand so she could reach past Schell, casting a volley of magic missiles. They hit, but Kaen seemed barely affected by them, shrugging off the impacts like they were irritating flies. Lucretia gritted her teeth, mind working as she squinted, trying to judge the distance in the grey dust. She needed something cleverer, but she was finding it hard to think, with the dust all around her and the panic making her heart beat in her chest, loud in her ears. It had to be only about eighty feet dividing them now, she thought. _That was close enough for a Confusion spell, and if she was lucky it should_ -

Her train of thought was interrupted violently, the spell fading at her fingertips. For it was at that moment that the sky turned black.

In many ways, Lucretia always thought, this should be familiar to her now; it had been so many decades, and each year, a few days after their arrival in a new world and the fall of the Light, the Hunger’s scout came, a grim reminder perhaps, but at least an expected one.

Yet somehow, it was not something that one could ever quite get used to. Now, especially, it took Lucretia by surprise, making her mind go blank with panic as the sky exploded momentarily with a sound like the screaming of infinite choirs, the grating of worlds one against the other. The white eyes blinked into existence overhead, grotesque and watching, for a fraction of a second. Her vision went white and she quailed where she stood, the spell she had been about to cast dissipating before it even left her wand as she lost concentration, struggling merely to keep her consciousness and hang on as dizziness and nausea rolled over her in waves.

And then, it was over. As her vision cleared, the darkness above was beginning to lighten again - at least to the already dirty grey that seemed to perpetually shroud this desolate world.

But Lucretia was not looking at that; for in that moment, the car lurched to the side, Laeni slumped half sideways in the seat. Lucretia found herself screaming, as she reached out to Schell, but he seemed semi-conscious too, barely managing to hold on to the back of the careening car.

“Schell! Grab my hand!”

She was reaching out to him, but his limp fingers slipped in hers; she couldn’t see his face well for the mask, but she could just about make out his eyes, unfocussed and bleary. He reached out for her hand, and the mage hand that she cast quickly, but both his hands fell short.

And in the process, he let go of the outside of the cage, and from then it was as though time seemed to slow around the two of them, alone together on the back of a car that was running out of control, its driver unconscious. And even now he was slipping from her, he was almost gone.

_Gone like her friends, her family. Gone because of her, and the kindness that had driven him to save her._

She gritted her teeth in frustration, hissing out the incantation to cast Bigby’s hand. But as she tried to grasp at him the car lurched over rocky ridge, bouncing and swaying alarmingly. Not enough to turn it over - and that in itself was a small miracle, Lucretia would think later - but enough to make her lose her concentration, the glowing purple hand dissolving into the air even before it had fully formed.

Enough to dislodge Schell’s feet from the cage, enough for him to begin tumble from the back of the car. Time seemed to slow around the two of them, as he fell, locking Lucretia in that stretched out moment as the ringing in her ears faded, that sound that the Hunger’s scout made that set her teeth on edge with discordant screaming, seemed to grasp down into her very heart and shake her whole being.               

Lucretia realised she was screaming too as she watched Schell fall; his mask came loose as he tumbled backwards, and she was afforded a last glimpse of his closed eyes, face blank and oblivious in his unconsciousness, eyes closed. His scruffy brown hair fell back from his forehead in such a way that he looked, in that moment, much younger than his years.

She screamed in frustrated sorrow, immediately pouring all her concentration into casting Bigby’s hand again, as he fell from the back of the shuddering car. She nearly lost her grip herself because of it, and almost lost the spell a second time, but after a moment, the glowing purple hand bloomed from her wand, shooting outwards to grab at Schell’s unconscious body.

And in another world, another time, maybe she would have been quick enough. Maybe the hand’s fingers would have closed around him, pulling him safely back, or at least as safe as one can be on a moving car with an unconscious driver in a wasteland strewn with boulders.

But that was not what happened.

Instead, the car lurched, and Lucretia and the hand with it. Even as it righted, she saw the luminous purple spell-fingers close around only air, Schell already hitting the ground in an explosion of dust. Lucretia couldn’t hear the sound of the impact over the roaring of the car and her own screaming, but before Schell vanished in the dust she saw him lying on the ground, a great spreading pool of dark blood underneath his head.

Then Schell was gone, swallowed by the dust as the car began accelerating down the slope of a hill.

And in that moment, Lucretia was struck by a memory. It was decades ago, a cycle where Magnus had died; it had been stupid, really. He had been shot with an arrow, early on, and fallen from the railing of the Starblaster. That had not been the first time they had to leave him, nor would it be the last. But she remembered she had been struck by it; the way that he had been there one moment, and then the next, he had simply been _gone_. Not that she liked the times when one of the others died in her arms – and there had been many of those – but it was always easier, somehow, when she got to say goodbye.

When Magnus had materialised again in his recorded state that year, they had all hugged him extra hard, reassured by his solidity.

Schell would not be coming back; not like that, not at all.

And as Lucretia returned to the present, she was screaming, and sobbing, but, she found, in that moment something else seemed to take over. Instinct drove her, combined with desperation, and she was scrambling out of the cage and forward in the car, to where Laeni was still slumped sideways, dangerously close to falling out through the window on the next bump. Lucretia righted her quickly – inadvertently cradling the half-elf in her arms, clumsily, but Laeni was heavier than she had expected – and took hold of the controls.

The car responded under her touch. It was half magic, half technology, she immediately realised. The magic, at least, was not exactly _familiar_ , per se; but not too not familiar, either. Gritting her teeth, she thought about Davenport, and the motions he used to pilot the Starblaster so expertly, as she struggled to wrangle the car under her control and steer it. She yelled in fierce, furious triumph as she swerved, and successfully avoided a boulder.

She had to keep going now, she realised; she couldn’t turn back. That had been true before, but somehow, this made it all the more immediate; an innocent man, a good man, had just died for her. She thought they had lost their pursuers, perhaps sent off course when the Hunger’s scout had come; she couldn’t see them, at least. That was fine, that would do for now. It felt small, suddenly, the chase and their flight.

Kaen and his people could die in the dust, for all she cared.

She didn’t know if she had it in her to make his sacrifice worth it; how could she? But still, she knew she had to try. For Laeni, who might yet live. For her friends and for the whole planar system and all the innumerable systems out there that may yet fall to the Hunger if she failed.

Lucretia drove on, the shield still active at the front of the car plowing through the dust and out of the last of the storm, fingers clenched on the car’s controls in fierce concentration, her whole body trembling with the weight of it all.


	6. A shelter from the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, can I just apologise for the long delay between the last update and this one? I was a little stuck getting this story to where I want it to go next (and working on other projects) but I know how I want to get it back on track now so expect more much sooner next time <3 Enjoy!

After a while, the dust seemed to grow more diffuse, and the light a little better. They must be far from the storm, Lucretia realised, as her senses began to come back to her, panic no longer the foremost in her mind. With the realisation came another problem though. Laeni had not woken up, and now Lucretia could see why; she must have hit her head on the side of the car, as there was a great ugly gash on the side of her head, blood seeping through to stain the outside of her mask and hood.

If she was back at the Starblaster, she could get her a healing potion. But there seemed, right now, very little hope that she could make it back there either.

For, she had realised, her situation was hardly better now than it had been. She was lost in this dust waste, with only a spell or two at most left for the day, and her only companion was a wounded, unconscious half-elf who probably hated her. Or certainly would, once she woke and learned of Schell’s death, Lucretia thought miserably. For that was certainly her own fault; she had been the reason that they had ventured out in the first place, the reason he had gambled with his life and lost. She raised one hand from the controls, scrubbing at her eyes as she wondered, once again, why.

It was a question she didn’t have an answer to. But she had plenty of those; she realised, too, that she had no idea where she was, and no concept of which direction to go in to find the Starblaster.

At that same moment, the shield of force began to flicker; the spell probably hadn’t got long before it had to recharge, Lucretia realised. At least the dust storm had passed now, but still. That shield might be useful for keeping away more than just dust out here, she thought grimly, her nervous mind conjuring horrors beyond every rock and ridge.

She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore how thirsty she was, her mouth beginning to taste like the ubiquitous dust again, despite the mask. She could use a spell to make some water, of course, but, she began to think, she should be saving those too.

(Once again, her heart ached as she thought of Davenport lecturing them all about saving their spell slots for emergencies; she had always been a bit better about that, and they all knew their captain didn’t take his own advice a lot of the time. Taako and Lup’s twin looks of laughing disdain filled her mind, their laughter ringing in her head and bringing tears to her eyes all over again.)

At last, the sky began to get dark, and not long after that the shield’s glow and projected image flickered out entirely. And so Lucretia drew the car to a stop beside a particularly large cluster of boulders, not knowing what else to do. She could very well be going in the opposite direction, she knew. She laid Laeni down, climbed up on the highest rock she could see, and looked around her in every direction.

All of them looked, predictably, the same; just grey wasteland strewn with boulders, as far as she could see.

Not that she could see much; there certainly wasn’t anything that could be called a sunset per se. The sky was perpetually thick and grey with cloud, the shadow and flicker of the dust storm still just visible on the horizon. But what little light there was was noticeably ebbing now. That made her realise how tired she was; she had been woken from sleep by Schell, though she had no idea how long ago that had been, or how long she had been travelling since. Worldlag was always a problem, arriving in a new cycle, but here she had absolutely no idea what time it was.

Still, she was well aware that she was almost out of spells, and her eyes were itching with tiredness as well as the perpetual burn of the dust that had somehow gotten in through her mask.

She had to sleep, Lucretia decided, getting down beside Laeni, in the lee of the boulder she had been standing on. She would hopefully be better able to find the Starblaster in the morning, or perhaps even to find this city where her friends supposedly were. But at least, she thought she was probably strong enough to give them some shelter for the night.

And so she sat down cross-legged in the dust, trying not to drop off to sleep as she began to cast Tiny Hut - pushing back the memories of Taako and Lup casting the spell and draping blankets over it for family scroll nights with popcorn - and presently, she and Laeni and approximately half of the car were surrounded by a little orange bubble of shimmering force, the wind and the dust instantly cut off.

She had just enough strength to pull off Laeni’s mask, to take the canteen hanging from her belt and pour a little water beneath Laeni’s lips. Then she took a swig of it herself; the water, as all else here, tasted like the acridness of the dust that inevitably got into the nose and throat here, mask or not. She could taste a little blood, too; she supposed that the dust was composed of tiny sharp particles, which were tearing at the lining of her throat. She had heard of something like that in another cycle, once. It didn’t bother her much, tired as she was; that sort of thing would likely be a slow killer, and there were many more pressing dangers that would likely kill her much sooner, at this rate.

That could not be allowed to kill her yet, Lucretia corrected herself immediately. She put the canteen of water down, forcing herself to save the rest, despite her thirst. She must think like a survivor now; not just for herself, but for her family too. For the whole world and every planar system out there. The appearance of the Hunger’s scout had been more than enough of a reminder of that fact.

The thought somehow seemed even heavier a burden than it usually did.

Lucretia curled up on the ground next to Laeni, exhausted to her very bones. But her mind, it seemed, wouldn’t let her go to sleep quite yet. She could hear the dull whine of the wind whistling through the chassis of the car, muffled though it was through the magical hut’s dome. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to go to sleep. Normally when she couldn’t sleep she would get up and write in one of her journals. But now she had no light, and neither the strength nor the heart to cast any magic. The notepaper and pen she had were precious too, in this wild, alien place, and besides, she thought, she was too tired and shaken to write anything very insightful.

So instead she curled in on herself, hugging her journal tightly in her arms, taking what little comfort she could from it; that, at least was a constant. Only then did Lucretia let the tears come, burning dampness on her cheeks that she soaked up with her hopelessly dusty clothes. Some time later, sleep came in a tangle of nightmares as dark as the wastes outside, separated from her only by her shimmering wall of magic, so little to guard against whatever lurked outside.

* * *

When Lucretia woke it was with a jolt, and in those first moments she was disorientated, unsure of what had woken her. The next thing she realised was that it had been a kick in the ribs, as another came, knocking the breath out of her and making her cough.

“Redmage? You alive?”

Lucretia groaned, tucking her journal away and pushing herself up from the ground; as she had slept, she had turned around so she was lying with her face half in the dust, and it clung to her skin and hair, making her erupt with coughs as she inhaled it. Laeni stood over her, tutting derisively as she picked up the shield, slinging it over her back.

“C’mon” said Laeni. “Unbubble this…bubble, and we’d best be off. Afore the vulfins come down on us, or somesuch.”

Lucretia blinked a few times, levered herself up into a sitting position, and tried to rub a little of the dust from her eyes. For a moment, memory eluded her, and she blinked stupidly up at the towering, dark masked figure, wondering vaguely if she was dead. It hadn’t felt like this, the times she had died before, but then one never knew.

Then she remembered, just as she felt another kick in the ribs. She coughed, rolling over and shrinking away from Laeni’s contemptuous gaze; Lucretia was suddenly glad she couldn’t see her eyes. But she was also on her guard, curling into herself and tensing, already thinking about spells to cast to defend herself, if it came to it.

But to her surprise, instead of another blow, she felt a hand pulling her roughly up by the scruff of her collar, setting her on her feet. She tipped forward a little, her muscles feeling weak and sore from clinging to the car and sleeping on the ground. A moment later she caught her balance, steadied once again by a heavy hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to meet Laeni’s eyes before she put her mask back on.

Her gaze, as Lucretia had expected, was hard to meet for long. Laeni burned hot with grief and anger, eyes bright with it through the wild tangle of her hair, matted at one temple with dark, coagulated blood that had, like everything out here, gathered the grey dust. “C’mon” she said. “We’re goin’ citywards.”

Lucretia blinked owlishly, confused and still bleary-eyed. “B-but…Schell… he’s…”

Laeni grimaced, baring her chipped teeth in a snarl, dropping her head so that Lucretia only caught a glimpse of the tears gathering in her eyes. “All th’more reason. Got…someone to tell, now.”

“Um. Pardon?”

She raised her head, looking angrier by the moment. “Someone to tell. Someone as was…close to Schell ‘n’ me. Name of Jhex. Did us a good turn, back when we were just lostlings all by ourselves.” She sighed. “He cared for Schell ‘n’ me like a father. So he’s gotta know, one way or t’other.”

“…I see” said Lucretia, feeling a rush of sympathy. Somewhere along the way, she thought, she had become far too used to it not being permanent when she lost someone. Though, she realised with a sinking feeling, this year might be when that changed. But she felt a little less nervous, as she watched Laeni turn away from her towards the car, the shield slung across her back.

Still, though, there was still a question she had to ask. “Um. Just to clarify, this does include me, doesn’t it?” she hadn’t forgotten the poster, the pictures of her friends, her family, due to stand in an impossible trial.

Laeni paused, half turned away from her. “Unfortunately, yeah.”

“…Oh” she said, deciding that politeness was probably the best option to fall back on here. “Well. Thank you, then.”

This, apparently, was the wrong approach, for in response, Laeni rounded on her with gritted teeth, unexpectedly pinning her to the side of the car with her forearm across Lucretia’s neck, making her gasp. Her face was inches above Lucretia’s, and there was that fury in her eyes, once more. “Make no mistake, redmage” snarled Laeni. “Only reason I’m botherin’, only thing keepin’ you alive? My promise to Schell. I’ll get you to the city right enough, so you can…see that thems as you call friends be dead as dustwalkers.” She gave a smile that looked even more pained than the frown. “Risk my own life to put your doubts to rest, but that’s Schell for you. Promises‘re like dawnage waterapples to him, but a promise is a promise is a promise, ‘n’ I, dust curse me, promised him.” She shook her head. “Even from a dead buffoon, but that dead buffoon was my brother and the only one left I cared for.” Somehow the sentiment didn’t seem vulnerable in her voice, as it would have from anyone else. It sounded fierce, a defiant challenge. She glared back at Lucretia. “So. I’m going to Celemarth, to tell my sorry tale to Jhex, but that’s as far as we go. What you do then…that’s up to you.”

Lucretia swallowed against the arm pushed into her throat, nodding quickly. “Understood.”


End file.
